My newest ally

Every year when Jeff asks me what I want for my birthday, Christmas, etc. my answer is always, "A puppy." Never have I gotten one. (Poor, Sarah!) Well, now that we are a household of three, my latest cause is to get the newest Zabel to join the canine party and sway the dog vote.

When Will and I were over visiting Rachael and Edie the other day, he got to meet Billy (pictured) and Sugar (not pictured) again. My Mr. Active was all about them. He was really watching their every move, reaching for them, and doing his usual, "OOOO. OOOOO. OOO." He got a few good baby pets (a.k.a. hair grabs) in on good ol' Billy. Enough so that, when we returned 4 days later, Billy wouldn't go near Will, much to Will's disappointment and Billy's satisfaction.

Mission Impossible

Two new moms.
Two young babies.
Two car seats.
One car.
One foreign country.
One autobahn.
The mission?
Ikea.
(cue music)

Rachael and I were needing an Ikea fix, so we figured there would be safety in numbers if we went together. Rachael was needing to give colicy and adorable Edie some practice in a car seat. (And by practice, I mean she'd never ridden in one.) So we decided to make a trek to one of the Ikeas that are only located outside the city limits and out of reach of public transport.

Sufficed to say overall it was a fairly successful mission! If I had made bets about an Ikea meltdown, I would have put them on Edie and lost big. Leave it to Will not to be upstaged his petite little buddy. He melted down during check-out (Yes, I can count Euros and sing 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' simultaneously, thank you very much.) Although, to Edie's credit, she communicated her distate of the car seat both directions of the trip.
My favorite, photoless moment was arriving home in front of Rachael's place with a screaming Edie and a dead asleep Will right beside her. Wow, I said to Rachael, he's going to make a great husband some day! ;)

A Genuine Play Date

I have been very fortunate to make many friends here in our 9 months here. Will and I attend many a playdate every week, but so far the play dates are simply a time for moms to commiserate while our children play with us or by themselves completely oblivious one another.

When Ulla and I got together for a quick catch up the other day, Will finally reached out and tried to play with baby Sarah. Of course he was all slaps and hits, but we're working on the word, 'Gentle!'

6 months old?!?!

We can't believe our little guy turned 6 months old on April 20th. Wow!
His latest tricks include: rolling with Mom's encouragement and kisses, untying his shoes, sitting up 75% of the time, throwing anything, and being constantly in motion while ironically still immobile.

Here are pics from months 4, 5, and 6 to celebrate.

4 months old in California

5 months old in Salzburg

6 months old with his cute little muffin top and profile pic below

Veggie Fun

Sweet potatoes = Good fun and good eats

Will likes 'em! He really, really likes 'em! Sweet potatoes were my first adventure in making Will's baby food. While we're still working with the whole spoon, tongue thing, at least he's got motivation now in actually wanting to EAT something! Next week will be another veggie, so stay tuned!

Volcano Madness!

If case you didn't hear (ha!), Iceland's volcano erupted during the month of April. While we understand it made the news a bit in the U.S., it REALLY made the news over here in Europe. In fact, it seemed as if everyone we knew were affected by it. The overall feeling over here was a 9-11 feel, but luckily without the devastating casualties. Just travel chaos.

We had friends stranded in Serbia with their 11-month old, who gave up on getting home to Munich before their vacation in Turkey and just hopped on to Turkey from Serbia.
We had friends stranded in Japan with their 8-months old, who gave up on getting home to Munich, and flew through SFO to ultimately make it family in Boston.
We had a friend stranded in Paris on business who drove home with a co-worker for 12 hours. Needless to say, he met us in a beer garten the minute he was back in town!
We also didn't get to see Crazy Uncle Pete and his girlfriend Emily because they couldn't make it over with the flights.
Wow!

The highlight of the volcano for the Zabels? . . . Oskar!
Jeff's former BMW buddy was in Munich on business, but couldn't make it back to London. All the hotels in Munich were booked solid for a bauhaus convention (Who knew?), and our guest bed won out over other offers of couches. So we were privileged to host Germany's head of Rosetta Stone here in our home for a few nights. As you can see below, the boys had no fun whatsoever.
Oskar is now back in Munich permanently, we look forward to more fun times, neighbor!

Budapest - Part II

Easter Sunday in Budapest started with breakfast at Cafe Gerbaud, one of the plushest coffee houses in all of Budapest. The inside was super ornate and fun, plus the coffee was wonderful!
After this we sped off to Easter Mass at St. Stephen's Basilica, then had fun wandering thru Pest and Castle Hill in Buda.

Will was hooting at this guy as he made our afternoon snack, so of course the Hungarian worker had to stop making the sugary, doughnuty goodness and get a picture with his new bud.

Here we are at St. Stephen's Basilica at night. It was a beautiful place inside and out. It was fun to celebrate Will's first Easter by taking him to church here, even though we didn't understand a word of the Latin mass!

Bad Tölz

One Saturday found us back in Bad Tölz, one of our favorite neighboring towns. We started with a Bavarian lunch and Will's first time in a high chair! I now bring ribbons in the diaper bag and tie his toys to the high chair to keep them from hitting the ground in dirty restaurants (and to save his mom and dad from picking them up ALL the time).

The main street the leads to the river. This is where our Christmas card photo was taken at the Christkindlmarkt, but you couldn't tell because it was too dark! (But that's a WHOLE other funny story all-together.)

Budapest - Part I

Easter brought us to Budapest, Hungary. Yes, for those of you keeping track, that's Country #6 for William, and a smidge before his 6-month birthday! After a 7-hour train ride, we arrived in Budapest to check in to the hotel and eat at an Easter fair in a city square near our hotel. We chose to eat Hungarian food that had been cooked in ginormous (about 3 feet in diameter) skillets. Nicht gut. But we shall keep experimenting!

Budapest was much bigger than we had imagined and anticipated, so we were glad to have great weather that allowed us to really explore the city. We have so many fun pictures I've had to split them into two posts. Saturday we started at Pest's Great Market Hall.

We had fun purusing the wares, staring and piles of meat, and gazing at the tanks of fish. We bought salami, cheese, bread, and some fun pastry thingy for lunch.
We stopped on a bench by the Danube in front of the Szabadsag Bridge. Here I am eating the fun pastry thingy. It was filled with potatoe and cheese. Yum!

William had lunch by the Danube too!

In order to get to Heroe's Square (above) from the Danube we needed to take the city's metro. Budapest has the oldest metro in all of Europe. In haus frau translation this means 'no elevators'. Jeff and I got really good at lifting our BOB jogging stroller (and son) up and down Hungarian subway steps.
Aside from the many, many, many steps, it was so much fun to ride in so many ways. The central line is extremely close to the street level because when it was built in the 1800s, all they did was peel back the street. The other two lines, however, are very much underground. They have the steepest and fastest moving escalators I have ever been on in my life! Taking the metro in Budapest should be declared an X-Game Sport. Can a husband and wife get two rolling suitcases, two backpacks, and a 5-month old in a jogging stroller on a 100-year-old escalator traveling at 35 miles per hour? The first ride challenged the strength of our deodorant, however by the end of the weekend, we were X-Game gold medalists.

Szechenyi Furdo Bath was the highlight of our Saturday. It is this massive size public bath house with room after room of therapeutic baths. There were huge outdoor baths, hot and cold indoor baths, and many different types of mineral baths. The three of us had fun "testing the waters". Will loved this outdoor bath the best of all. (Well, he had no choice, it was the only one he could go in.) Jeff and I had fun testing out the various baths indoors while taking turns with Will. We decided neither of us could leave Hungary without trying one of the cold dips. That's when I bravely stepped forward, took my son in my arms, and told Jeff to go ahead. ;)

After a fun few hours in the bath house, we ate at the Owl's Nest (recommended by Lonely Planet) and had fabulous Hungarian food.

Egg-static

It should come as no surprise that the Germans love Easter. (Is there any holiday without huge hullaballoo here?) The gorgeous flower baskets are everywhere, every store window has tree branches with blown, decorated eggs tied to the limbs. Spring is coming . . . you can feel it!



One other Easter phenomenon is the appearance of decorated, hard boiled (we think) eggs in the grocery stores. They come in a variety of colors, so pretty! However, they aren't refrigerated and they sit out for who know how long in the stores, so Jeff and I were too nervous to eat one. We'll have to ask some locals about this for next year. . . .

Glamour Shots

While we were in California, I took William to a photo studio in the mall. I'd always wanted to do this and it was super fun! Grandma and Papa had fun looking on as I sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" to get Mr. Will to smile near the end. Here are some of our favs or our little 4-month old's photo session.

Wearing his dad's saddle shoes from when he was a baby

Snapped seconds before he started teetering to his right

William's Baptism

A HUGE highlight of our trip to California was William's baptism. It was such a special, special day. He was baptized at Los Alto United Methodist Church on February 28, 2010. In addition to LAUMC being such a large role in my upbringing, my parents also got married there! Will was baptized by my youth leader, Rev. Dirk Damonte, and his wife Carol (also my youth leader) sang during our baptism. As a girl sitting in the choir pews as an acolyte assisting in baptisms and a member of Starfire singing every Sunday, I dreamed of the day when I would have a child get baptized by the Damontes. Thank you, Dirk and Carol, for making this life long dream a reality!

William saying good morning to Dirk while cousin Josh looks on.

Baptizing Will -- He wore the beautiful Zabel family baptism dress. Jeff, Pete, and Grandpa Charley were all baptized in this dress.

Getting paraded up the aisle by Pastor Rick while Carol sings.

William with his Godparents -- Robin Tenold and Peter Zabel

William with his wonderful family!
We felt so truly loved to have everyone make the travels up for William's big weekend. The Zabels from Colorado, Uncle Steven and David, Auntie Barb, and Gigi from L.A., The Lees from Salinas, and cousin Jackie who's at UCSB. Thank you to you all!

William with both sets of his grandparents. How special! (Please ignore my son's tongue. He obviously doesn't understand the significance of this picture!)

Gigi with (almost all) her grandkids + one adorable great-grandson
(Jackie, sorry we didn't think to do this while you were still here! Annie, we missed you!)

California Visit -- Family

Going Back to Cali . . . .

Our trip to California couldn't have come at a better time. Will was in a predictable (enough) routine, the Munich snow was still falling, we were falling into a homesickness for friends and family, and we hadn't had GREAT Mexican food in over 7 months!

But back to that friends and family part . . . we had so much fun during our 2-week stay I have to break it into 3 different blog posts so as not to overload on photos.

First and foremost we were so blessed to see ALL our family while we were there (Okay, okay, we sure missed Annie who is at Westpoint, but we understand!). For some it had been a few months since they had seen Will and for some it was their first time meeting him.

Taking in this thing called "The Sun" (Will had never really seen it nor been outdoors in anything but a snowsuit before!) with Nana Bubbles

Yep, these arms feel quite familiar. Love my Grandpa!

It's nice to meet you GAD! (Great Auntie Donna)

Grandma's got her favorite arm chair, and I've got mine. It's hard to tell who looks happier. :)

YYIIPPPEEE!!!! It's GAB! (Great Auntie Barb!)

Well, sure Gigi, I'll pull your finger. You're pretty sassy for a great-grandmother. I love you!

Cali Friends

Good times with good friends!

We were super lucky to catch as many friends as we did while we were home. It was amusing to realize that we didn't need to say, "Catch us up on the last 7 months" because thanks to our Vongage VOIP phone, Facebook, and blogs (not ours, obviously) it was more like, "What's gone on in the last week?" We are so lucky to have so many ways to stay in touch. And, after this home leave, we feel like all the methods really work! Hence my newly-found dedication to our blog.

Despite a bit of jet lag, our first Saturday we were super excited we were able to swing by Reese Preston's 4th birthday party and pay a visit to the Otas to meet Tanner (above). It was fun empathizing over EVERYTHING new parenting brings with Jeff and Stephanie.

Sunday found us at In 'n' Out after church. I know, I know, pretty surprising we lasted 48 hours in town without it!
Later that night the great eats kept going with Jeremy Ware's famous enchiladas. We had a wonderful time getting together with 3 other fabulous friend/couples! The next night Jeff and I had our first official date night at Straits Cafe. Two nights out in a row? Thanks Grandma and Papa!

Also during our first week we had a rowdy potluck with the Belshers and Sicklers. Our Santa Clara crew. Here are the dads with their little ones. All that was missing were the Prices!

The next Saturday we hosted Will's Mexican Fiesta in an attempt to see as many wonderful friends as possible without driving all over town. Everyone was so great to make time during their precious Saturday to swing by. Thank you all for coming! There was plenty of fun noise (kiddos and convo) and plenty of fabulous Mexican food (http://www.taqueriacazadores.com/2001.html).

Here are my friends Corinne and Katrina with their little ones. Hard to believe all three of these guys were in utero while we danced our hearts out on the dance floor at a friend's wedding in June!

I got my giggles holding all our friends' babies. Jeff got his giggles driving a buddy's Porsche. A good time was had by all!

My girls! Sheri, Robin, and Brenna
These three made my Cali visit soo special. Sheri flew up from Texas for some Will time (and I'd like to think she wanted to see me too), Robin took days off of work just to hang with Will and me, and Brenna let us descend on her two gorgeous daughters for two fun playdates. Love you!