September 1, 2008

Hallo!

Today we took a trip to the Wilhelm Zoological Botanical Gardens in Stuttgart. This is a unique kind of zoo with a combination of animals, exotic plants and architecture, both old and modern. Built in 1850 for King Wilhelm I. of Wurttemberg, as a summerhouse and greenhouse. There are over 1,000 species of animals and over 8,000 animals in all. Over 6,000 species of plants and over 5,000 orchid blossoms. Many of the plants date back over 150 years old to the beginning of the park.

There is also a world-renowned aquarium. From little local fish to the crocodile, animals from all parts of the world inhabit the aquarium. The king penquins from the Antartic were one of my favs.

If you are ever in the area, visit Wilhelma!

September 2, 2008

Mark and I walked Alex to his first day of Kindergarten. All of the children line up with their teacher and walk single file into their school. Alex gets the advantage or maybe I should say temptation of getting to stroll through the playground to get to his classroom. The look on his face as I got ready to walk away was almost heart-breaking. He was one sad looking kid. It was almost as hard on Daddy. We watched from afar through the fence as he stood looking outside from the doorway. I know he was searching for us in the crowd of parents.

I'll be there promptly at 2:30 anxiously waiting to know about his first big day.

August 29, 2008

Oh Happy Day!

The closing on my Knightdale house is complete. After being on the market for only 2 days, my house was under contract. Unbelievable in this market.

Also, today is Kindergarten Open House. My baby is starting school in a few days!

August 24, 2008

Today is Sunday and we're off to Legoland Deutschland. This is the 2nd part of Alex's birthday present.

The day started with a grand roller coaster ride. Alex's first "big boy" roller coaster which he rode with enthusiasm. Afterwards, he said he was both happy and scared at the same time, but ready to go again. That's my boy!

It was a beautiful day. The weather has been fabulous most every day that we have been here so far.

August 21, 2008

Happy 5th Birthday Alex!

Today is Alex's birthday. We went out to dinner at The Patriot, a local restaurant, where we had pizza. After dinner, we came back to our temporary home at the hotel where we had ice cream cake and he opened presents.

August 14, 2008

We've arrived! After almost 14 hours of flying from North Carolina to D.C. to Frankfurt and then at long last our arrival in Stuttgart, we made it. So did our kitty Bandit.

Our sponsors Pete and Russ greeted us at the airport. We were the American family of 4 with 8 large suitcases and kitty cage in tow. They couldn't miss us!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

It's early Sunday morning here in Germany. There's a 6 hour difference in time than I am used to - so here I am at 4:00 AM watching the 2008 Summer Olympics as Michael Phelps goes for his 8th gold medal.

Yesterday, we visited a small town called Boeblingen (pronounced Berblingen) where we stopped and had a picnic lunch overlooking the downtown city of Stuttgart. A most beautiful sunny day around 70 deg.

There was a playground nearby which had a zip line. Too tempting to resist, so we all took our turns zipping down the line. What fun! I will post the pics shortly.