One perfect day in Munich

For quite some time, the Zabels were wondering, "Did we miss summer!?" The Californians we are, it never occurred to us that weather might be so horrible in other parts of the world. Therefore, when the forecast on Friday called for a beautiful 70 sunny Saturday and Sunday, it was time to roll!

Thank goodness Will always gets us up early. We woke up, had poached eggs on fresh bread, and were out the door and at the zoo by 9:30! Sarah and Will got an annual pass to the zoo so they could go anytime they wanted, but Dad was lucky enough to have a nice day to come along.

 Here we are at the zoo checking out the Eisbaers (Polar Bears). They have a brand new exhibit and it was fun to see them play. Will also loved the elephants, sea lions, and penguins. By the time we hit the monkey cage, you could almost see smoke coming out of Will's ears. The zoo with so many new things can be overwhelming.

Here I am with mom watching the sea lions feed. She told me all about the real life sea lions at Pier 39 in San Francisco. I can't wait to watch them there.

After the zoo, it was off to my good buddy Gus' first birthday party. Here we are checking out girls next to the beer tub. We are a couple of cool dudes.

The weather was perfect and there was blue sky! Will is flying high and loving every minute of it! Do it again dad, again!

The original plan called for an afternoon nap for Will at home in his crib, but we had to adjust. Instead, it was time for a huge walk! We all walked from our place through the English Garden up to a beer garden called Aumeister. The walk is about 6 miles from our house.

Here Will is at the beer garden laughing and waving at everyone. We think it might be one of his favorite social places. The chair Sarah got him to attach to the tables is genius.

Will loves to eat pretzels and hang out.

Finally, we took the subway home for bed. What a great day. We can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring.

One more gray hair

I joined two other moms at Oberpollinger Department Store's restaurant for lunch and kiddo playtime. I thought the play yard was a bit too old for William, however he proved me wrong.
He proceeded to climb up about 12 stairs. (Yes, he did receive a smidge of help from me, but it was only because they didn't have any backs.) After crawling around the upper fort a bit, he decided to launch himself head first off the 5-ft-tall slide. This video of him is on his 4th go around.
Goodness gracious, we've got a boy on our hands! Anyone know a good hair salon that can eliminate the gray hair I'm slowly accumulating?

Location:Bazeillesstraße,Munich,Germany

Crazy Uncle Pete and Emily Visit!

This last weekend we were lucky enough to have Crazy Uncle Pete and his girlfriend Emily fly in for a whirlwind 3-day stay. Their last intended visit was during the Iceland volcano hullaballo, so it was long-overdue and we made sure to pack in as much as possible!

Marienplatz, English Garten, Universitait, Odeonsplatz, Hofbrauhaus, neighborhood summer fair, our favorite pizza place, cappuccinos, gelatos . . . DONE!

But a first for all five of us was a stair climb and elevator ride up to the top of the tower in the Frauenkirche. It was a nice day with great views.

Monkey business

Can you picture these two wrestling in a couple years? T-R-O-U-B-L-E

A family pic outside of BMW World

No, this is not how we roll around Munich. :)

Looks like William's Evil-Kanevil tendencies are not limited to slides

On Sunday, we drove out to King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein castle. It was amazing and breathtaking.

We're so glad to have visitors that allow us to be tourists in and around our town!

Sorry folks, this was the best photos of us Zabels at the castle. So much for our Christmas card!

William was first to point out the lights in every room of our tour. The ceilings were pretty fascinating too.

That King Ludwig sure knew how to pick a view. Too bad he never got to enjoy it.

The happy crew

After arriving home from the castle, there was still enough time in our Sunday evening for some great park time for the super-trooper William. Plus, it was a great opportunity for a little relaxing Sunday beverage for the rest of us. These Zabel boys sure know their way around a swing!

The ultimate finish to a wonderful, wonderful visit was the combining of the two only reasons Uncle Pete ever makes it to Munich: William and gelato!

My favorite stand in our neighborhood prides itself on 100% pure fruit gelato. We couldn't think of a better place nor a better person to share William's first gelato than with Uncle Pete at Amarino at Weiner Platz.

Going in for the first taste of mango.

Wow! Baby brain freeze!

From the looks of the smiles and mango mustache, I'd call it a success. Let's hope we don't see any tantrums when I stop to get gelato next week and William doesn't get any! It's a Crazy Uncle Pete treat!

More Monday Musings

Fresh from my iPhone . . . here a some more Monday Musings . . . .

8 months old
These parsnips were too cool to pass by without taking a picture at the Viktuelienmarket. William couldn't believe they were the same good eats that come in a jar!

8 months
People, people who need people . . .

8 months
William's always my super helper in the grocery store. He'll gladly help me hold any package while we shop. The crunchier and noisier the package, the better.

7 months
William, not one to miss out on realizing he's quite the charmer, always takes full advantage of people's undivided attention on public transportation.
Elevators, trains, busses, trams. Been there. Charmed there.
Grandmas, construction workers, pretty girls, grandpas, occupied businessmen, dogs. He doesn't discriminate; he's an equal-opportunity charmer.
Add on his most recent ability to wave, and we've got ourselves a smile-producer wherever we go.
This poor lady didn't stand a chance.

Living in the city, William spends most of his time in his kinderwagon while inside stores. However, this was his maiden voyage in a shopping cart because we had company coming and needed the car to haul all our purchases.
How quickly does a baby learn he can reach out of the cart and grab things off a shelf? Quicker than his mom's anticipation!

8 months
On one of our few summer weather days here, Jeff met William and I in the English Garden for some R&R after work one night. I think my loungy boys are adorable!

9 months
His latest trick. Sorry for the blurriness. It's not the camera, it's the subject.

9 months old
'Nough said.

10 months
Priorities.

French Wine Country

One of our best weekend getaways, by far, was our recent trip to the Alsace region of France. The drive was doable (4.5 hours from Munich), but sure seemed long due to summer highway construction and the fact that we spend so little time in a car now that ANY time in a car seems long! Could it be the fact that our son is getting bigger and more active too???? Nah . . . .

To make the drive more fun, Jeff borrowed a BMW GT from the office to test and debug his Smart Phone project while we drove. William, showing a true case of like father, like son, demanded extensive testing of the interior light buttons by repeatedly signing for me to turn them on and off. The GT was super nice and comfortable, but unfortunately it's a gas-guzzler we won't be leasing any time soon.

We began winding our way down the wine road just in time for lunch stop and found a fun restaurant with French cuisine.

William opted out of the escargot and chose to gnaw on bread instead.

We had every intention of finding the Konigsbourg Castle all the web pages told us about, however we literally stumbled upon in while driving to extend William's nap. Thanks, Will. You sure are efficient to travel with!
Here we are outside the castle with a view of the valley behind us.

Konigsbourg Castle was restored in the early 1900s and definitely doesn't disappoint. It had a great self-guided tour with beautifully intricate rooms and courtyards.

Here's Jeff by an original wine barrel in the kitchen. Yes, please!

After a short drive to Ribeauville, we arrived at our hotel with plenty of time to explore this quaint little town.
*Hotel De La Tour is a great place to stay in Ribeauville*
www.hotel-la-tour.com

Scouting for our breakfast for the next day . . . I think this bakery will do . . .

A view of vineyards and another castle from the streets of Ribeauville. We couldn't get over how picturesque our surroundings were.

Everywhere we turned we felt as if we were on a movie set. It was all too surreal.

Thank goodness for beautiful surroundings. It made up for our disappointment when tasting the wine. We knew the region was famous for its rieslings and gewurtzraminer wines. These aren't usually our favorites, but we read that a good bottle from this region isn't necessarily sweet, but actually dry. After hefty research on Jeff's part, we still didn't find wine we absolutely loved, but it sure was fun to taste!

Instead of drinking our way through Ribeauville, we decided it was best to eat our way through it. We found this amazing sweet store (aptly named 'Guilt') with macarons. In addition to buying a box for dessert at lunch, Jeff and I decided we needed an ice-cream sandwich at 10:00 in the morning too! Stay tuned for a future blog post about our new gym membership.

On Sunday we explored Hunawir and Riquewihr, two other highly-recommended Medieval towns on the wine road.

My boys galavanting in Riquewihr.

Thanks to the helpful ladies in the information office (and my helpful husband who finally gave in to my pleas of, "Just ask information!!!"), we found a delightful park at which to eat our cheese, proscuitto, bread, and macaron lunch and let Will get some much-needed movement before our drive home.
How beautiful is this park??? Man, the kids in France don't even know how good they have it.

My cute boys

Fed up with two days of jarred baby food, Will decided to take lunch into his own hands.

"I will not be caaaagggeeedddd!!!"

Our happy little guy

What? You still have energy left? Okay, back through the tunnel with you.

One last stop on our way out of Alsace was in Dambach-la-Ville. We had to drive through the castle walls in order to get into the city. The town was asleep for the mid-day break, but we managed to fine one wine shop open and tasted one last bit of French wine.

On our way out of town we drove through a sobriety checkpoint directly outside the castle wall that hadn't been there an hour before when we arrived. They made every driver breathe into a plastic bag, then squeezed their air into a gauge that measured alcohol content. Jeff passed, of course. He'd never drive when he shouldn't. But it's experiences like this, in a foreign country too, mind you, that make you go, phew!