Saturday, June 28, 2014

So peoples lives all look prettier on paper right? It's so true.

We ate more cereal today. IN fact, we took a special trip yesterday to the commissary to get the Malt-o-Meal bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch so we could have more for the weekend. We might just be surviving off of that stuff right now. That and leftover Stouffers lasagna. We also went specifically for bubbles. I'm a good mom.

Today we went to the Farmers Market in downtown Weiden. I wish I would have gotten more pictures which, if I were to just post without words, you would think 'awwww, that's awesome. How wonderful'. But you wouldn't know the walk there was incredibly long with 3 kids (actually 12 kids because we went with our neighbors/friends) and that it was humid and we had to go up this really intense hill. Or that it was really busy downtown and wrangling kids with scooters and strollers and bags was really fun. Especially when said kids don't want to ride those scooters, or the kid in the stroller wanted out which was fine except the stroller was top heavy and therefore tipped over after the child got out. So good.

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The produce made up for it though. IT was delicious. I got tomatoes and 2 apples and cherries. That's it. Don't forget I was wrestling the stroller and the kids and the language. So I settled for those few items. 


Crocs are universal footwear



Thursday, June 26, 2014

I just posted a crap ton of blogs from Myspace. I'm supppper mad at the interwebs right now. First of all, back awhile ago, I accidentally made the switch from classic Myspace to some weird stupid new version of it in which it deleted alllllllllll of my old stuff. Dates on pictures, comments on said pictures, and comments on blogs. anger.

THEN I remembered I had an old blog at easyjournal. Remember that? It was the time of like 2005 and prior. It's gone! and now I'm all worried about blogger doing the same thing to me. IS that gonna happen? Just disappear?

It was weird to go through SO many of my old posts, some of which I didn't post here because they were private then and are still private now. I watched (read?) myself through moving from az to pa. and then back from Pa to az. and through the birth of Jackson and Sadie too. By that point, I had migrated from Myspace to this lovely place I now call home. at first, this blog was called "thenicklefamily.blogspot.com" and then I changed it almost immediately because I am an individual. and I like my individuality. Maybe autonomy is a better word.

Crazy. I don't even know. I don't have words.

I even found a blog that talked about Big Brother and So You Think You Can Dance. I love summer TV. Does anyone watch Big Brother besides Hannah? Please say you do. I need someone to talk and mull it over with. Speaking of which, I get to go watch the first episode! Which is sad because you guys got to watch it last night. Hashtag Germany.





Wednesday, June 25, 2014

The computer was staring at me. Sounds cray right? I'm sitting here, just trying to enjoy my show (a smutty one). There it sat. I couldn't look at anything else. So here I am. Watching the show and writing.

I live in Germany. Still sounds so weird. Doesn't register as real in my brain yet.

I can't yet confirm or deny that my man is not here right now. My super nice neighbor totally validated me in saying how I have everything big happening to me at one time. This is our first duty station, it's overseas, and my boyfriend is getting deployed. Early on!

The good news is I get to reward myself/our family with a trip to Greece or maybe Spain. I know right? Do you want to be mad at me right now?

I remember when I used to be witty. If you go back to any of my old posts circa 2008ish... I was good. I want to get back to that place. David and I discussed our writing aspirations. I told him I'm fully supportive of him being a full time writer. Really. He is so good. Have you read his stuff? This is the blog he kept the summer he was in China. I was the one who posted them for him and I can't believe the comments I got from people regarding the quality of his writing. It's kind of overwhelming. His song writing and his word writing. I get a teeny bit angry when I think about it too much.

My life right now is not necessarily worth writing about. at least in this moment. It's now Wednesday afternoon, one child is still in pajamas, 2 kids' don't have their hair combed and I'm pretty sure the only thing we have been eating is the cheap version of Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of glass jars. Classy style. We also have been watching Pingu all day. Have you seen it? It's so funny! Sadie figured out that "Boitchen" meas no in Pingu. Haha! She's smart.

also, I can't capitalize a. I think I told you that last time though.

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It's a cold blistery day here in Weiden, Germany. Did you know that Germany is smaller than Montana but bigger than New Mexico? That's crazy. It seems so huge. There's so much to see here!

I need to watch Friends and I'm pretty sure I have no seasons on DVD. I might just go check. I can't even watch it on Hulu. Or Netflix. Or amazon Prime. I mean really?

What are some of your other favorite shows? I'm looking to fulfil the spot of "teen drama". I've watched Gossip Girl, 90210, The O.C., and I haven't finished One Tree Hill. That's it. I've gotta go.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014



Remember when this movie came out? It's still my favorite. We listened to this song on the record player yesterday. It sounded magical.

So we went to Vienna. I bet you never would have guessed that. I know. Surprise!!!

Here are some pictures. I will try to have some commentary. But I also know that gets boring really quick. I think my favorite part about the whole trip was when I did a Google search for "American restaurant chains in Vienna" and I totally found a TGI Fridays. It might have been the best day of my life in the last 2 months.


We first checked into our hotel. Holiday Inn baby! I told david that's one of the things I wanted most, was comfort. Which for me, meant familiarity.  David racked up many a loyalty point since he stayed in the Army IHG hotel during his training at Fort Huachuca. Therefore, we are going to continue on that path. He earned a certain status which got us an Executive room on the highest floor (sounds MUCH fancier than it really was) and free Wifi. That was a super deluxe bonus. 

Our next stop was the Prater (public park, more like huge-almost-like-Disneyland park)  in Vienna. The Riesenrad is super well known by anyone who visits the city. I didn't know about it. So I guess I'm not anyone. ha. Anyway, it was super fun. The entrance to the park is free and the rides are really fairly priced considering how nice they actually are. I love the set up. You get to pick and choose what you ride and therefore it was a lot more budget friendly than say a one stop shop ticket would be. I always want to remember the one time David wanted to take Jackson through a walk-through dinosaur experience. Um. I'll have to have him tell you about it. Let's just say it wasn't a leisurely activity enjoyed by all. I'm pretty sure there were tears involved. Maybe from both parties. Jk 









Mom. These are magnets. A whole wall of them. I did NOT get you one. Haha. I plan on bringing you here. To this Ferris Wheel. Where you will pick out your own. :-) 


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The next day:

We woke up late and headed to a kid friendly place to eat. I'm pretty sure anyone who has lived in Germany knows exactly what I'm talking about when I mention how uncomfortable it is to go out to eat with kids. The Germans like to stare. And everyone has assured me it's not that they are being rude, it's just in their nature. So I'm totally not used to that. And I'm not used to being okay with our kids being so loud. i feel like everywhere we go, we are the LOUDEST people on the planet. That and we have a million kids. Well according to them we do. lol. So anyway, we wanted to go somewhere and feel normal. We found the place!

It was a cafe situated right in the heart of the museum district of Vienna. It was very kid friendly. There were low to the ground tables and chairs and couches and there were balloons! The menu featured foods like hot dogs and spaghetti and hamburgers and it was all very reasonably priced! It's called the Dschungel Cafe (Jungle Cafe). Here's some more information. It's attached to a theatre house which would have been cool to see a show at. We walked outside the front door which goes directly into a courtyard where there is plenty of seating and fun chairs etc. They had a life-sized fuse ball table game going and Jackson jumped right in. So fun! While he was playing I jaunted over to the children s museum to see what that was about. They offered programs and information in English. Looked fun but we decided we should probably not waste our time inside when we were in Vienna! So we devided on the zoo instead! lol. But really, we thought it was a good decision.

Trendy Eis menu. Cute too! 


The live fuseball game! 


a cute gallery piece. I swear I'm gonna make this someday. Can someone Pin this for me? lol. 

MuseumsQuartier


The Schonbrunn Tiergarten is the most beautiful zoo I've ever seen. I mean, does that surprise you? 

Read the sign! It made me so happy! And it made me laugh too! 



So this zoo though! The picture below, is a picture of the imperial breakfast pavillion opened in the 1700's. There are 13 animal things surrounding the pavillion. It's amazing. You can see the curve of it all in the pic above. You can eat in the cafe that is now situated inside the pavillion. 


The Flamingos were one of my favorite pieces of the pie in the menagerie. 

So after the zoo we decided to walk and hike to the Schonbrunn Palace and the Neptune Fountain. Just pictures. I'm sure you are tired of hearing my boring voice.

view from the ground


Do you see that WAY up there? We hiked all the way up there! 

Here it is!!! 

Can you please ignore our amazingly glowing faces. My stupid phone automatically puts on "Beauty Face" mode when taking a front pic. I think they assume all front pictures are for Selfies. And they are. But how awkwardly obvious. And my tooth looks like a buck tooth. Which it kind of is. 




Selfie! 

Theres this guy relaxing! 

Then theres this guy taking a selfie too!!! 

Then comes the TGI Fridays. Pure. Happiness.


Ice! 

That's the building the TGI Fridays is in. You can see the sign. 

Another view from the same stoplight we were at when we took the restaurant picture
Next day:

We drove home. Almost. We decided to take a detour down to the Grossglocker High Alpline Road. Go check out the website! It was seriously crazy beautiful and we didn't even make it all the way through the mountain road. Next time!










We ate at this amazing restaurant on our way out of town. The food was SOOO good. It was so refreshing. It tasted good and it tasted normal. And it was SO cheap too!



View from our table at the restaurant! 


Also at the restaurant! 

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So that's pretty much it! We drove all the way home. Got home Monday morning at about 2 a.m. It was worth it. And so amazing. I feel like the end to this is so anticlimactic This trip wasn't though!

There. Closure! 

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