Vroom Vroom!

Victoria's ever-expanding vocabulary definitely consists of a few favorites. But of course those change quickly too, just like everything. At any rate, she loves to say 'Auto!' and then 'Vroom Vroom!' It's usually accompanied by 'Ahdah', which means outside.
'Ahdah. Ahdah. Auto. Vroom Vroom!'
By the by - She's quite the little vroom vroom herself. She is walking around the entire home now very well, and all on her own.
Here is a nice shot with Simone, Victoria and Leo hanging out in the playarea.

Sitting down for a little ND action

Here we are sitting down to watch Notre Dame football - me in my home jersey and Victoria sportin an ND cap. Simone took this photo on a fine Sunday morning. Of course the games are not shown here, but I've got my ways...

Driving up to Hanover tomorrow morning, very early. Better get some shuteye.

Hmmm...What'll it be for dinner tonight?

Looks like it'll be rice and veggie patties, Italian flavor. Hom mommmm! (Victoriaspeak for 'food' or 'hungry')

Zipping all around

Victoria is really taking off now. She zips around the home like nobody's business. She is rather speedy and is practically running sometimes. It won't be long before she doesn't need any helping hands, either. She also climbs the entire staircase in this picture with ease. But she does wait to make sure one of us is behind her. She also walks with her car around the place. Tasha and Leo must think she's a terror sometimes.

Here is Vicotoria riding IN the car (usually she wants to walk it). Complete with bubbles and her 'Las Vegas Baby' t-shirt.

Wilderness Park

We took Victoria to a Wilderness Park in the springtime. She liked seeing all the different animals. Even saw some really big bears, which I believe were Kodiaks or the like. I just noticed this...If you look closely, the goat behind them is taking caring of business. How nice.

Choppers update

Lil' Peppa now has a total of 11 teeth with the 12th breaking through as we speak, but Mommy's keeping her as content as can be.

Swimming class, or was that splashing class?

Victoria really took to her swimming class. She attended over the early summer, before she was a year old. Simone and I had a lot of fun taking her, and Victoria had a lot of fun discovering the joy of splashing.

Photo Shoot, take 2

Victoria had a chance to go to a photoshooting, her second time through it. She was just over a year old for this one. She had an ok time with it, but it wasn't one of her best days when we went in, so it was a bit tough getting her in a good mood for the shots. She's wearing a nice little outfit Grandpa picked up for her from the States.

Tasha and Leo with Baby V

Tasha and Leo are really doing great with Victoria. Actually better than we had hoped at this stage. Simone thinks it's gotten even better now that Victoria likes to feed some of her own food to Tasha and Leo from the dinner table. I think she's on to something.

Case in point -

Yesterday Victoria was crawling around, and started heading for the staircase to go downstairs. Tasha quickly walked over to the staircase entrance, stood between Victoria and the the stairs, and gave her a little nudge so she would crawl elsewhere. I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely amazed. So very sweet, too.
They are still getting used to her, and getting used to having to move down in the pack by one spot, but they are doing better each day. Our hope is that as Victoria gets older and can do more 'with' them as opposed to 'to' them, the three will become the very best of friends. Here is a pic of T and L in the backyard plotting on how to get rid of that little thing called Victoria...

Jeep

Victoria loves to climb over ANYTHING. She's quite capable actually. I call her lil Jeep when she's in action.
So, she has already taken on our staircase, which is a full staircase - twisting, wooden and open. She has climbed the entire thing a few times already. It must look like Mt. Fuji to her...but without the snow.

Choppers

Two more for the baby Victoria.
She now has four up top, four down below.

More birthday parties

Since Victoria was just in the US, she naturally had a birthday party there while with my family. But, we also wanted to have a party here with Simone's family as well. So we did just that. Oh, and we also had a small party on the ACTUAL day with her friends Lasa and Andy and their moms. See, in Germany you are NOT supposed to celebrate your birthday early. If it falls in the middle of the week, which hers did, you are supposed to wait until the next weekend to throw a party. So the actual date we had her friends over:

Victoria had a very nice time playing with the boys. That's Lasa's backside, and Andy is looking at my guitar. Yvonne (Lasa's mom) is with her camera, and Astrid (Andy's mom) in on the left. Victoria is looking very, very Adorable. She's wearing her outfit Aunt Amy picked out. She also wore it at the final party...

Next was her party with Simone's family. It was quite a few people actually. We had a good time entertaining, and Victoria got to enjoy more attention yet again. I don't think she minds that at all.

We had her party on a Sunday. Oma and Opa made it, as well as Aunt Liane and cousins Thomas and Yvonne, along with other extended family and friends.

We have liftoff

Shortly after returning home from her big adventure in the US, Victoria decided it was time to STAND. She has been crawling now for a good couple of months and I think she just said to herself - Enough of this. I want to try something new. So here she is trying something new. And hanging out with her birthday present from Uncle Ken - classic Winnie the Pooh.

She's gotten quite good at standing and gently sitting back down. She very much enjoys walking around the edge of her playpen as she holds onto the railing. Walking around the home is just around the corner.

Victoria's first trip to the US

Yup! Victoria has already started filling up her passport.

Sadly, Simone could not make this flight, but Victoria and I took off for what proved to be quite an adventure. Although Victoria was incredibly good on the flights there and back (and I quote from a fellow passenger, 'I have never in my life seen a baby so good on such a long flight before!'), let me tell you: going solo with a young'un on a nine hour flight isn't exactly the easiest of things in this world to do. But Victoria made quite a few friends along the way. No kidding, she had over ten people stop by our seat on the way to Chicago just to see her. One woman came by three times. One man said, 'She's quite the flirt. You'd better keep an eye on her when she gets older.'

Anyone out there ever try changing diapers in an airplane bathroom? I'm not a small man. It's not a large space. Anywho, moving along.

We took a couple of weeks in June and made our way to Chicago and Springfield to meet the family - some for the first time. Like her cousins Evan and Lauren:

Victoria had a really fun time meeting her cousins. We even went to the zoo with Uncle Bob and E and L . Victoria met some pretty big animals up close and personal.
Grandma and Grandpa and all the rest of the family threw Victoria her first birthday party. It was a couple weeks early, but I don't think Victoria minded. Here is a pic of everyone enjoying some birthday cake.

Victoria discovered a keyboard while we were there. She also likes to help me play guitar. The girl's got rhythm.
She had a great time playing with all her uncles and aunts. Here is a picture with Aunt Amy as we were getting ready to leave. Aunt Amy was very sad. So was daddy.

I also took her to our old neighborhood in Chicago, Lincoln Square. Grandma came with us. We had a good time checking out this and that. She really enjoyed strolling around and people watching.

The flight back was not the greatest of times. It was not a direct. After a long delay at O'hare, we JUST missed our connecting flight in D.C. (literally they were closing the door as we ran up to the gate). We sat in D.C. for an extra five hours and the airline had lost our stroller - so I had to carry her the ENTIRE time. You'd think after this trip I'd have biceps like the Governator. My back is still recovering. Not fun.

We made it home ok. Simone was the happiest person in the whole of Frankfurt airport.

Mittelalterliches Burgfest

So last Sunday, Simone, Victoria and I took a road trip to a Medieval Fest. Above is a picture of the setting, Stettenfels Castle. It was pretty interesting certainly. They had a knight, fully clad in his armor, guarding the bridged entrance to the main courtyard. There was a stage down below for jesters, musicians and actors in a courtyard area between one of the enormous walls and some buildings. There were also some tents showing the typical knight's quarters when out on the road. Of course just walking round the grounds of the entire castle was fascinating. Checking out the structures and walking in and out of the place, ducking for many of the entrances and trying to imagine it as it was in 1400 or so.

Simone and I kept saying, 'Oh, you know who would love this? Evan! You know who else would love it? Lauren!' Yup, my nephew Evvy and niece Lauren would dig it indeed.

Next time I hope to remember the video camera to get a little film footage of it all.

Toots and the Maytals

After she was born, Victoria had a tough time with the colic. So for her first three months we tried many different things to calm her down in the evenings.
One of her favorite things was dancing with Mommy in the living room to Toots and the Maytals. In this picture she is not quite two months old, but she is already digging the reggae. On occassion Daddy would make up his own reggae songs and play them so they could keep on dancing.

Aunt Patty!

Patty came for a visit over Easter and let me tell you - I'm not sure who had more fun, Aunt Patty or Victoria! They really hit it off.

It was a great visit and I'm very happy she could make it.

This first picture is no small feat. Victoria does not let ANYONE hold her except myself or Simone. She is quite vocal about that. This picture tells you just how much Victoria likes Aunt Patty and enjoyed the visit.

Ready, Set, and...

Crawl. Yup, baby Victoria is now crawling all over the place. She's actually been crawling now for a few weeks. Backwards. She was stuck in reverse but she just found first gear. So we're keeping busy keeping up with lil' Peppa as she scoots around the place.
Oh, and when she lays on her stomach she likes to roar like a lion every so often. Very ,very sweet.

Bad Wimpfen

Bad Wimpfen is a small town about 2 minutes from our home. It was far away from Heilbronn that it didn't get bombed out during either of the World Wars, so all of the medieval town is still (mostly) there.
Simone took me here as one of the first places for me to see. It remains one of my favorite towns to go to and we drive through at least once a week.
The town's medieval structures date back to 1200 or just before. There is a map drawn up so you can see how the walls around the towers and fortress and church/courtyards looked during that time, with an explanation of all of the remaining structures. This first picture is of the 'Blaues Turm', or 'Blue Tower/Castle'.

This is a picture taken outside the grounds the current church. Whenever I walk by this place it weirds me out something nasty. All of the faces on the statues are either missing or worn away in a very disfigured way. Just creeps me out, that's all.

This next photo Pops took while they were here visiting. I think he liked the houses in the background with the Smart car in front of them. And yes, Smarts are very common here. SUV's not so much. If you saw some of the roads in Bad Wimpfen you'd understand.

In the back here was part of the original wall around the Altstadt (Old Town).

The picture below was taken from the other end of where the Altstadt's grounds began. The Blue Tower is in the background showing where the protective wall would have extended to. The grass here shows part of what would have been part of the courtyard. The stone on the right is the tower overlooking the valley and Neckar River it was built above.

The picture below shows modern houses that would have fallen outside the Altstadt wall.

Above is a jewelry shop Mom and I ate our ice cream in front of. It is in the modern part of town.

At Christmas Bad Wimpfen holds one of the more famous Weihnachtsmarkts (Christmas Markets) in Germany. The entire town is turned into a Medieval Christmas Festival. This town is the perfect setting for such events. I will post pictures after this Christmas.

Exactly 150 days until...

Notre Dame Football! Oh man! Can you feel it? Can ya?

Victoria told me she wanted to watch every game with me. Simone doesn't believe me.

Radio Magic

Two mornings ago I was driving in the Cooper, and what did I hear on the radio?

That's right. They wanted me to wake them up before I went went. Well, I couldn't go fast enough. I instinctively smacked the power button on the radio to silence the Duo before they could do any more damage. After shutting off the radio, I continued to stare at it as if I were preparing a scathing retort. I glared at it for several seconds. I had nothing.

And today, on the same country lane, at the same time of the morning, during the same stretch of road, on comes...

Foreigner told me I was Cold As Ice. I didn't immediately silence them, as I was indeed fond of Foreigner 4 at the tender age of 11 or so. No, instead I paused for a few thoughtful seconds and asked myself why I had forgotten my iPod for the second day in a row. Why?

Where it all Began

When my folks came to visit last September one thing on the agenda was a roadtrip with the purpose of seeing two towns - Stadt Blankenberg and Mainz-Ebersheim.

Our original family name is Von Blankenberg, meaning one who comes from Blankenberg (Blankenberg means Shiny or Bright Mountain). It was later changed to Blankenberger, again meaning one who hails from Stadt Blankenberg. Here's a picture of Blankenberger Straße. Straße means street. Show the folks what's up, Pops...

So, we went to Mainz-Ebersheim first. We'd been there before and knew the score, mostly. We got some more information from the city hall on the history of Blankenbergers in Ebersheim. Most all present-day German Blankenbergers live in this small town outside Mainz and have since about 1700. Dad was given a book published by the town on the history of the town. There were several very old grade school photos and the like with many Blankenbergers in them. It was pretty cool.


Next was Stadt Blankenberg. This was particularly exciting because none of had been there, and Pops knew from research that there were castle ruins still there. If I got everything right from what Pops was telling me, our ancestors began in Stadt Blankenberg around 1100 a.d. or 1200 a.d. Well, they thrived for quite some time in the city and, Dad, didn't you say at one time one of the Matriarchs ran the town? Anywho, round about 1700 there was a major conflict with the church, the church took over the castle and kicked out the Blankenbergs. That is when they left town for Mainz-Ebersheim.


We went to claim our inheritance back. Here is a picture of the outermost tower that overlooks the valley. We were able to go inside and have a look around. The doorways, stairs and hallways were not made for modern man, by any means. Quite tight in there!

In German, there are two types of 'castles'. One is a 'Schloss', the other is a 'Burg'. A Schloss is a castle that is more for show - a symbol of wealth or importance. It has no particular function other than as a status symol. A 'Burg' is a castle built like a fortress - strictly for defense or military purposes. So Burg Blankenberg was quite functional and built on the very edge of some very high ground. Great location for keeping the baddies out.

There was a wall that surrounded a good portion of the town, which includes the present town as well. Dad and I both took a piece of the wall home. Consequently, we were arrested and shackled in the middle of town while old ladies threw rotten cabbage at us. Sorry, no picture of that.All in all, it truly was a great experience to know that we were walking the same steps and pathways as our ancestors did hundreds of years before. Can't quite put it into words exactly. And to know the history of the family tree, all the interesting plots and twists, made it as special as it was. This trip ranks very high on my list of experiences here so far.

Slippers of Steel

A Christmas present last year from Simone and Victoria, my Superman slippers have proven to be far more comfortable than steel. And in fact, I don't believe there is any steel actually contained within the threads at all.

Toys'R'Us

Last November we took Victoria to a casting company (yes, we did our homework on them to prevent getting scammed). It was done for fun and to hopefully get some nice pictures out of it. She had several pictures taken. The photographer really liked Victoria and took a lot of extra time with her. Victoria was wearing her 'Born To Rock' onesie and I think that's what really got the photographer going, as she was a rocker herself.

We got a nibble about two months ago from Toys'R'Us who needed a baby Victoria's age for their next set of ads, but nothing came about from it. No worries, Victoria had fun doing the photoshoot and so did we.

Yeehaw!

Ride 'em cowgirl!
Victoria is now beginning to eat a cracker/cookie while we have our breakfast. She has her own breakfast much earlier of course, but it's a nice snack until lunch. She's been watching us eat long enough now from her own chair. She's been taking notes with her pencil and paper for several weeks now and she told me she thinks she's got the idea.

O'Hare Airport

A couple of days ago I was walking with Tasha and Leo early in the morning around the farmfields behind our place. It was raining, as it does here often. It was also the time when most other doglovers were walking their dogs before leaving for work.
I got a really big laugh that morning. Here is why.

There are two main pathways from the farmfields that go back to the houses in the town. This particular morning, which was very wet and very windy and downright nasty, there were about six people and about ten dogs within a few hundred yards from each other. We all wanted to get back into our homes as quickly as possible. Well, we all mostly know each other's dogs and we know who gets along and who doesn't.
So, without a word spoken, just like jets circling O'Hare airport, we all waited, circling, then approached the two 'runways' at appropriate distances from one another and filed into the town - without incident I might add. Just cracked me up, that's all.

Mahlzeit

Victoria started eating solid lunches shortly after Christmas, and now she enjoys solid dinners as well. She eats everything thus far, with no particular preferences for one food or another. Fruits, vegetables, meats, you name it. Of course, we're to understand that can and usually does change over time.

She sits in her hochstuhl quite nicely for mealtimes. She gets pretty excited (learned that from Daddy) about the prospect of embarking on an adventure for the tastebuds. She makes a 'hommm' noise just before the spoon gets to her mouth.

As I was typing this I just noticed Leo's contribution to the picture. Nice.

Bonfeld

This is the schoolhouse in Bonfeld. It's a very quiet little village that has a lot of farmers. Tasha and Leo love the fields behind our home. The mice in the fields DON'T love Tasha and Leo.
For me, going from Chicago to Bonfeld was probably a bigger shock than going from the US to Germany. Bonfeld: population 1632. Did I mention it is very quiet here?

Living in a rural town in Germany is different from in the US. A typical drive in the country in this region means: a few kilometers of beautiful forest, and then on through a village and back to the country road for another couple of minutes and on through the next village. You rarely find yourself in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes this is great, sometimes not so much. Germany has 82,000,000 people living in a land the size of Montana. Dense population means little space. For this reason, most things - from cars to houses and yards, to laws - are created with compact size and efficiency in mind.

Family Photo

Here is a shot of Victoria, Tasha and Leo, Simone, and myself. We had just finished a walk in the woods and were back at the car. There was an older man nearby going crazy on some lumber. He was chopping away and chatting to himself a bit. He was moving chopped logs from one seemingly meaningless spot to a new one. We asked him, interrupting him I might add (but he was only put off for a minute) if he wouldn't mind taking a picture for us. He said he'd be happy to. He was nice. He informed us he had been a photographer for forty years.

Notice how the shot is off-center, out of focus and a bit far away. We also had to help him with the camera button to snap the shot. Stinking technology.

Wild Boars

This past Sunday I was hiking with Tasha and Leo in the forest. We regularly spot deer, birds of prey, and an occasional fox or two. But on this fine afternoon, just before sunset, we came across a wild boar. It was no longer alive mind you, but a wild boar nonetheless. It appears a local hunter had done the deed.
It was pretty big.
Speaking of - it's time to take Tasha and Leo on another hike. Perhaps we'll spot something new this evening. I do hope it's still alive though.

American Football

I checked out the local American football team last month and went to tryouts. I was put into the starting Quarterback role. Damn skippy!
I am the only American on the team. I am also the oldest player - older than the coach. It only took the first hard hit to understand why.
Just look at this picture. If I were you I'd be scared of me. I might be a pirate, I might have eaten a scotch bonnet pepper. It might be both. You decide.

Baby of a Blog

Testing one two three...
OK, seems the PA is working fine.
Here you will find, dear family and friends and others simply perusing (stop it, that hurts), one way of keeping in touch with me, Simone, Victoria, Tasha and Leo. I will do my best to post often on the mighty adventures of Familie Blankenberger as we make our way through life in Europe.