Three Milestones: Dance, Dance

This post marks three milestones: Today PJ is 16 months old. This is the 400th post on Pickles and Onions. And as of today, this blog has been viewed almost 41,000 times.

The only way I know how to celebrate all those together is to turn up the music and get my groove on. Naturally, not alone ... cause, really, who wants to see a video of me dancing? I'm guessing not even my mom would be in for that one.

I'm dancing with PJ of course!

We make a great dance pair, right?

Though I'm guessing I'd get voted off if this was "Dancing with the Steinbachs". In that light and considering it is another month day for PJ, here's another video of just PJ with first his favorite stuffed puppies, then his mommy's giggle, then getting his groove on, and finally jumping onto his papa.


Don't you just want to join in? Go ahead and thanks for joining us on this journey, for celebrating with us, and for sticking around!


xo

Cowboy!

Remember when Aunt Sally helped the Mr. ride a horse for the first time? That was also the first time he ever grabbed onto electric fencing. I'm pretty sure his favorite part of the story was the horse riding...mine is and remains his face when he got a surprising shock.

Lord, was that funny.

Anyways, PJ isn't going to wait until he is 29 years old - he is already practicing his cowboy skills. On Mommy.

I'm an extremely willing pony, especially when I see that smile at second 14.

xo

Happy Halloween!

PJ went trick-or-treating for the first time this year. Since we live in Germany, where trick-or-treating is just entering into the mainstream, making this night possible bordered on magical for me. I have great memories of trick-or-treating in all the different neighbourhoods we lived in or visited. When we lived in the middle-of-freaking-nowhere my mom would even drive us up to Dayton to enjoy the night.

I guess I wanted PJ to have a taste of that too. Thankful the weather was on our side, although it wasn't warm, it didn't rain and it wasn't windy.

PJ as Eyore, nice and warm.

Friends of ours invited us to their small village for a night of awesome people, easy-going trick-or-treating, good food, and fun music. There were even jack-o-lanterns.

First stop, pumpkin review.

The Steinbach clan. I really did have a costume on - you'll see it later.

As soon as it got a little darker, we took off to trick-or-treat. The older kids ran off with two dads and the rest of us came together in a rag-tag sort of group. PJ was the youngest in our group - the others were seasoned pros. At the first two houses, PJ was confused. But by the third place, he carefully climbed the stairs, scooted through the kids who had already gotten their candy, to confidentially stuck out his open hand. As soon as he had his piece of candy, he'd throw it into his little bag - made by Aunt Sally a year ago - and head off to follow the older kids to the next house.

The 'older' kids setting the pace.

PJ getting his piece of candy.

Heading off to catch up with the others.

After a few hours, little PJ started to get candy picky. Sometimes he even had to be convinced to take a specific piece.

Hum....which one should he take?

This one shall do.

After he got the door part of the trip down, he noticed the other kids were carrying their bags. He got into the game...for a very short period of time. Bags slow ya down, you know?

PJ with his bag of candy. It was a big bag.

 Then we got back to the party, where the dancing recommenced and...

...PJ met fire! We had to hold him back with both arms, the entire time. Who doesn't like fire?

Finally we wrapped up the evening with some yummy salads, which somehow made PJ very excited.  That should make me happy but I'm pretty sure it was still the rush from the trick-or-treating, the dancing, and the fire (!!!).

It was totally the fire. Or the candy. Or my own excitement at sharing something so fundamental to my childhood with my own child that rubbed off on the entire Steinbach clan.

Yeah, it might have been that. 


XO

Out with the Old!

Before we bought our fabulous home, we had an expert come around and check it out. He was satisfied with the status of just about everything in the house - the heating, the windows, the walls, the roof, etc - but there was one aspect of the house that he said "must" change: the patio.

Over the years, the patio had settled unevenly, resulting in loose tiles that made walking on part of the patio a bit adventurous (PJ liked those parts more than the barefoot Mr.) and led to water running towards the house rather than away from it. I don't know about you, but we like when water heads in the other direction.

So, out it had to go.

I thought its be pretty simple: pick out some new tiles and get it done.

I had no idea how many tile options are out there. I'm pretty sure the stack of brochures I collected weighs about as much as I do.

And patio shapes! Why go with square when there are so many other, more natural shapes out there? Curves! Swoops!

And patio sizes! Why stick with the same, cramped patio when we could make it wider and/or longer?

And lights! Why not? Really, why not?

Long story, short: it took three months for us to decide what the "new" patio should look like.It didn't help that we also had some rather out of control vines and bushes around the patio. Did I mention that mosquitoes love exactly those types of vines?

Here is the patio - post one round of rather dramatic vine cutting - in July 2012.

You can see how deeply the patio sunk on the left side.
The mosquito vines are hanging behind me.

Those cracks in the patio? Not suppose to be there.
Like those vines behind the grill? So do those mosquitoes.

We started in August to cut the vines back even further and I took out one of the bushes. I guess when the mosquitoes got starved out, the peacocks from the castle decided our patio wasn't so bad.

What our patio looked like on Friday, October 19, 2012.

When we finally had a plan and I finally ordered the materials - we could finally start directly working on our project. Yesterday the real work began: tearing up the patio tiles, removing the underlying sand, and digging the hole for the patio extension. Considering we aren't the handy-iest of people and aren't in the best of shape and frankly don't quite know what we are doing...we kicked ass.

The tiles are up, the offensive vine is gone.

The other offensive vine is also gone, as is an impressive amount of earth, and a complete bush.

Next weekend, we put down the new foundational materials. Then our lovely friend, The Garden Goddess, will lay down the tiles.

And then, because we've crossed off all the big projects from our list, something will go wrong - cause that's how home owning works, I've been told. Right?



xo

Dear Driver of The Big Shiny Car

Dear driver of the very nice, very fast car with the license plate PF US XXX,


I will be praying for you and your family. Lord knows someone was out there praying for me and mine this morning. Otherwise I just can't explain how you failed to total our cars and kill one or both of us.


We both have families with little ones. In fact, they spend their days just across the road from each other: yours at the school and mine at the day care. I think seeing you with your child and carrying mine in my heart always, your behavior this morning is especially bizarre to me. Maybe you were just in a hurry, running late like I was this morning too. Or maybe you have a new car - it is a really nice looking car - and you are still enjoying its powerful pick-up. Or maybe you are a thrill seeker and seek out opportunities for a rush. I don't know why you almost ran me into incoming traffic by coming up so hard and fast on my right side in a zipper formation in the center of Schwetzingen.

Or maybe you are American and you don't know how to drive in a zipper or that passing on the right is all sorts of illegal in Germany? And that the speed limit is a pretty tight 50 kilometers an hour within German towns?

Whatever the reason might have been, we were both lucky (blessed?) that my grandfather rammed defensive driving into me between the ages of 16 and 28. Each time he rode with me, he drove me crazy with his reminders to pay attention - know what and who is on the left, the right, headed towards me and always repeating "its better to be alive, than to be right." 

For example this morning, did you see the massive construction vehicle headed towards us? Well, actually headed towards me before you whipped past me, partially cutting me off and mostly pushing me into the left lane. Have you ever driven a vehicle that large? I haven't but I did drive a tractor more than a couple times and I took physics in college. Maybe you don't realize that a vehicle that massive cannot stop as quickly as, say, your very nice car. Even if that driver had been the best driver in the entire world, he or she couldn't have really done a whole lot if I hadn't first seen you coming, aggressively, on my right and slammed onto my breaks hard and long.

Did you hear the screech of my tires? Those of the cars behind us? Did you hear the horns of other drivers, shocked and angry? Did you see the driver of the construction vehicle hit the breaks hard too? Did you see how close it got?

Did you see me survive?

Or were you already too far ahead, too focused on your own world, too ignorant to realize what you had just done?

I don't know. I just know that I am so thankful that someone was praying for me and my family. I am thankful that my grandfather drove me nuts. I am so thankful that I was in our very nice, big Mercedes this morning and not in our little, sweet VW.

Tonight, when I see my family, I am going to hug them hard. I hope you will to. We are so lucky to enjoy our families, to watch our little ones grow, and to be their parents. I don't know about you, but I want a lot more time with my child and my husband. I want many more mornings, afternoons, evenings, and, yes, even crazy, interrupted nights.

So, please, the next time you are behind the wheel of your fancy car, could you please remember your family? I assume that they love you, that they want more time with you, and that they are particularly happy to see you in normal clothes, rather than a prison uniform, and sitting in your living room, rather than laying in a casket.

And please, please, please also remember that your fellow drivers have families too and none of us want to host a funeral for a young mommy, especially for one who dies for absolutely no reason at all.

All the best,       Pickle

Oktoberfest in Schwetzingen

I may have already mentioned how great our new neighbors are in a recent post. But you don't have to take my word for it, a proof point instead.

Oktoberfest has begun in München! Don't know what Oktoberfest is? You poor thing, follow this link to Wikipedia.

We are about 5 hours away from Munich which might as well be the other side of the world for us these days. Thankfully our neighbors decided to bring Oktoberfest to Schwetzingen. For brunch. Including Oktoberfest appropriate massive one liter (or 34 ounce) beers.

These people are our type of people.

And they invited us!

We may have been a little surprised by the liter beers. For a second.

Along with the beer, there was quite the buffet spread. Yummy! Since the party started right at PJ's nap time, we both got to eat our food warm. In case you don't happen to have a toddler at home, warm food during a party is pretty darn cool for parents.

Weisswurst, Fleischkäse, cake. What more could you want?

I have no idea what this should be but it looked pretty nifty. Anyone know what it might be?

We must have sat at the table for hours, chatting, listening, laughing. The table was mixed and stories and jokes flew in every direction and everyone was included.

Then PJ woke up and got into the groove with a PJ sized pretzel. The kid is smart: who doesn't love a good pretzel?

When the Mr. had enjoyed enough beer, PJ enough pretzels and admiration from the entire party, and I got enough cake, we all toddled home. The Mr. promptly took a three hour nap (might be a little jealous about that one) and PJ started practicing to be a waiter at Oktoberfest 2030.

The real waiters and maids must be able to carry 10 loaded one liter beer mugs. I have no idea how they do that. Maybe they start small....like with three sippy cups.

xo

Heidelberger Herbst - What a Year Changes

Heidelberg rolled out the red carpet recently for its weekend-long, extremely full Fall Festival called "Heidelberg Herbst." Basically the entire city center fills with stands offering beer and food and beer and beer and ... getting the point? ...and tourists from all over.

Pre-baby we'd roll towards the Herbst in the late evening and enjoy a number of those beer stands. Now, post-baby we've slowly discovered that there are actually lots of other things being offered at the Herbst. Things like clothing and antiques and music and tons of different types of food. Even kids games and rides. Who knew?

Last year the Herbst was one of our first big outings with little PJ and my sister was here with us. It was the first time we took public transport with little man. I was shocked to discover that I never posted about our trip because it was pretty damn awesome. Better late than never!

Back then, last year, we took PJ out in the Baby Björn (please never use one of these - go with a baby-friendly Ergo or like product instead) and he slept as he had never slept before.

The Mr loving on PJ as he hangs in the Baby Björn.

There was all sort of silliness that happened. This is my favorite picture of that silliness.

PJ was just a few months old and we stopped on a stoop for a snack.

I can't seem to locate a picture of my sister at the Herbst and she was so fabulous at the Herbst. I can't believe that I missed taking pictures of all that. Anyways, for a reminder, here is my amazing sister.

You can't help but love someone with those sunglasses.

This year, we again took public transport. PJ enjoyed it quite a lot more this time around.

At first on daddy's lap for the food.

Later in his own seat, like a big boy.

This year instead of being carried the entire time, he started off on his own two feet.

Later we stopped on a stoop for a snack. What a differance of year makes!

Instead of my awesome sister, we ran into some good friends over Guiness at the Irish bar. Everyone had their own coaster. Everyone. PJ insisted. 

After ensuring his own coaster - and 'prost-ing' everyone five times - he took a tour of the Irish bar. I think he was more than at home. That sort of worries me but I'm taking it a day at the time.

After a bit of walking around we discovered a bouncing castle. Is there anything better? Try to find PJ holding his own as the smallest in the castle. He totally held his own and for quite a long time.

Right when we were suppose to be headed home, little PJ feel asleep in the Ergo. So we posed quickly....

and then stayed for a while. We might gone a slight bit bar hopping. But just maybe.

That may be a toddler asleep on his back. Or not.

Bar hopping does remain the best part of the Herbst afterall.



xo