Our 4th Germanniversary

Today marks the 4^th anniversary of our arrival in Munich.  This last year definitely held the most changes in our lives in Munich so far as we left behind our travel-orientated lives to prepare for our first child!  And as today is our Germanniversary, we continue our annual tradition of looking back on the prior year and reflecting on our favorite and least favorite moments of our 4^th year in Munich.

Highs:

Here are our favorite moments of this last year (in no particular order):

• Learning I am pregnant, and then finding out we are having a son! 
• All of the travels we fit in pre-pregnancy and early-pregnancy: Scotland, The Rhine region, Hallstatt, Portugal, Switzerland, Paris (Julie only) and Israel (Julie only).  Hey – Noah got to go to Brazil for the World Cup last year…
• All the friends and family who visited us!
• Going to Frühlingsfest and being able to fully enjoy it, beer and all
• Driving out into the countryside late at night to watch the Geminid meteor shower.  After so many tries over the last decade+, we finally were successful with a meteor shower and saw more shooting stars than we ever expected.  (the photo is not of the meteor shower since we didn’t take a camera with us)
• Our first trip back to the US in over a year and a half, and seeing family and friends (including meeting my nephew Tegan for the first time)
• Finally seeing two of our favorite Bavarian spots covered in snow and ice – the Partnachklamm gorge and Schloss Neuschwanstein
• Our 2+ weeks of Christmas vacation, where we focused on relaxing and spending time together.  We watched all 7 Star Wars movies, Noah cooked a lot of delicious food, and we played a lot of video and board games.  In about a month, it won’t be just the two of us anymore, and it will be a LONG time before we have the luxury of spending 2+ weeks doing nothing.
• Discovering Trustedhousesitters.com and having two wonderful couples stay in our apartment and take amazing care of our dogs for two of our vacations.  How I wish I had known about this website when we first moved to Munich!

Lows:

And now the lesser favorite moments (also in no particular order):

• A super hot summer + no air conditioning.  We had to simply shut the living room door and avoid that room as it reached the 90s with all the windows.  The rest of the apartment wasn’t much better – upper 80s.  And we aren’t exaggerating about it being hot – Germany reached its highest temperatures in history!
• Having nausea for all three trimesters (though if that is the worst that happens for my pregnancy – I will gladly take it!)
• Spending Noah’s birthday sick with a cold (on top of the morning sickness), then passing the cold on to him.  Happy 30^th Noah!
• Missing out on Oktoberfest this year – Thanks Max! J
• Noah’s embarrassment over calling a Kinderarzt (pediatrician) and saying he was looking for a Frauenarzt (gynecologist) for his baby.  He gave the receptionist a good laugh.
• Hard to fulfill pregnancy cravings!  You can’t go get a Wendy’s Frosty or good queso here.  And 2 days after I started craving non-raw sushi – our sushi place closed down for a month for their August holiday.  The plus side – I probably would have gained a LOT more weight if we were back in Texas the whole time. 

Thanks Munich for a wonderful 4^th year, and we can’t wait for what awaits us this next year!!

The Grandparents come for a visit

Back in early June, my parents came for a visit.  It was perfect timing because I was able to tell them in person that Noah and I are expecting.  At first I thought it might be too soon (I was only ~6 weeks and hadn’t seen a doctor yet), but as their arrival approached, I knew there was no way I could keep that kind of secret in. 

As the timing was in between Mother’s and Father’s day, I told them that I had gifts for them to celebrate.  In fact, I had Oma and Opa themed presents, and they were shocked and extremely excited to know they had 2 grandbabies on the way (as my brother’s wife was also expecting – but now baby Tegan is 6 weeks old!!). 

Mom figured it out before Dad

The next morning we loaded up the car and headed to Austria for a long weekend getaway.  Our main destination was the little tourist town of Hallstatt, but we found a cheap apartment hotel in the nearby town of Rußbach.  Rußbach was incredibly charming and cute – a typical small village nestled in the alpine valley.  We leashed up the dogs and went on a small walking tour. 

The next morning, we left the dogs at the apartment and drove past Hallstatt to the Dachstein mountains.  Here you find some amazing ice caves – though not without a nice little hike up from the gondola.  As it was so hot outside, it was a wonderful relief to enter the chilly caves (though not a dog-friendly place).

The only way through is via a guided tour, and it turned out we were the only English speaking family in the group of about 40.  The tour guide was very accommodating and told us to stay up front with her, and she would translate her German speech to English for us at each station.  The only issue – some people really wanted to be in the front and would cut us off, only for the tour guide to tell them they had to stay behind us as we needed English translations.  We would then hear ripples of people talking about the ‘Brits’ at the front. 

And of course being at the front had some advantages – I was able to get some nice photographs without anyone in them! 

After our tour and lunch at the nearby restaurant, we took the gondola back down and drove past Hallstatt again back to our patient pups at the apartment.  They were more than ready to hop in the car to join us when we finally made it to Hallstatt.  It really was as picture perfect as you see on the internet – though there were plenty of tourists (including us of course).  

We ate dinner at a cute restaurant on the water, and Noah spotted a swan being ‘chased’ by his larger, paddleboat version. 

My parents had really wanted to take a boat ride on the lake, but we had already missed all the trips for the day.  So the next morning after checking out, we went back to Hallstatt so they could catch the first boat of the day.  As I am not a huge fan of boats, and we had the dogs with us, we stayed on dry land and took some of the same pictures as the day before – but this time with sunlight! 

After meeting back at the dock (where the girls made quite a few friends while we waited), it was time to head back to Munich.  While Hallstatt was adorable and definitely worth a visit, it was the perfect size for a short weekend getaway.  

Baby Weiss coming in 2016!

Noah and I have been awful at blogging lately – our last blog entry was at the end of May (about our 5^th anniversary weekend to be specific).  We do have a valid excuse for this though – which is that I am pregnant!!!  I’ve been preoccupied with nausea/exhaustion while Noah has been busy feeding me.  But I figure it is about time we get back into writing on our blog, and I thought this would be a good story get us back on track.

Ever since Noah and I moved to Germany, having a baby here was something on our radar.  The reasons why are clear: First is the paid time off: 14 weeks full-paid maternity leave for me, plus an optional 14 months of ‘Elternzeit’ (time off with a partial pay cut) for Noah and I to split as we choose.  Next there are no hospital bills (socialized insurance), and there is Kindergeld (the government pays you additional money monthly for each kid you have)!  The only issue – when we moved here at the age of 26, neither of us were actually ready for the baby part of the deal.

When we originally thought we would be here for only 2 years, we focused our free time on traveling, rather than thinking about children.  However I had decided I didn’t want to have a baby in my 20s.  So it seemed like it was settled – no German-born baby for us.

Then, when Noah signed a 3-year contract in December of 2013, all of a sudden the baby-card was back on the table.  But when 2014 rolled around, I still had the travel bug too badly.  I figured I would need to cure myself of the travel bug before I took on the baby bug no matter my age, so Noah and I continued vacationing around Europe. 

However as 2015 approached, I realized after our Scotland trip we will have made it to all the places on my travel wish list.  All of a sudden, I felt my travel bug’s symptoms waning.  So what did I do?  Made a spreadsheet, of course, with the various scenarios and timing options of having a baby.  Luckily Noah is used to this type of approach I take to life - our budgeting, our travel planning, and now our baby planning.  Based on my calculations – I was able to determine the ideal time to try for a baby and the only part left was to put our plan into action.

Fast forward a few weeks into May, and I start having some weird symptoms.  Many of which can be attributed to pregnancy, but they can also just be from about any other illness in the Web MD database (I probably searched them all).  Neither Noah nor I wanted to get our hopes up too much that we had success right away, but if I had to bet money, I would have chosen ‘pregnant’. 

We were heading out on our 5-year wedding anniversary weekend to the Rhine on Saturday the 23rd, and my period was scheduled for Wednesday the 27th.  However, I had it in my head that it would be so cool to learn we were having a baby ON our anniversary (the Saturday).  So when we arrived to our hotel, I took a pregnancy test, only for it to say NOT PREGNANT, and make me sad.  Noah reminded me that 1) it is probably still too early, and he can also rub a coin on my face and flip it in the air and have the same level of scientific accuracy and 2) it is not that big of a deal if it doesn’t happen this time around.  Side note – this is exactly why blogs suggest NOT taking pregnancy tests early, because they probably won’t work (although the manufacturers claims might suggest otherwise).

So I relaxed and enjoyed our vacation and tried to take my mind off of the whole baby thing, though in the back of my mind, I still kept thinking of how I felt different.  We came back on Tuesday from our trip, and Noah and I took the dogs to the park.  I asked Noah when I should take another test.  He agreed that I should take one that day, but that it isn’t a big deal if it says no.

As we returned I was still thinking about taking another pregnancy test, but Noah had moved on to wanting to clean his car.  So he took off to the carwash, and I decided to take another test.  A few minutes later I checked it – and I saw the second blue line.  This test says I AM pregnant.  OMG WHERE IS NOAH???  I debated calling him, but decided that finding out at a carwash that your wife is expecting isn’t the most charming of all stories.  So I waited for him to return.

When the doorbell finally rang, I am excited but want to mess with him a bit too.  I mean, he did suggest taking this test and then left before I had a chance to do it, so he deserved it.  In the meantime, I had checked the mail and a DVD had arrived, so when he came up the stairs I had the DVD behind my back.  I said I had something to show him, and then presented him the movie.  I could see his face get excited and then drop a bit – clearly he thought I had a positive pregnancy test in my hands (later confirmed when he told me).  I then brought him to the kitchen to show him the real news – and then I declared I need more tests to make sure (I took 4 more after this with varying degrees of blueness to make sure).

Noah declared that we need to celebrate, so he went and got champagne (for him) and bitter lemon (a soda, for me), and pizza.  And we can’t forget a red candle, which clearly stands for love. 

So now I am 20 weeks / 4+ months pregnant, and our baby is due February 2^nd, 2016!  Now we need to get back to writing the blogs we have had planned, but haven’t gotten to.