Deutschland, Deutschland

The Eggenberger Women

(the three on the right were not part of our group)


Easter was so much fun this year since we decided to take a trip to Stuttgart (Germany) to see Etienne's sister Roberta and her husband Wolfgang. As a last minute addition, Etienne's parents and sister Susanna decided to join us which made for a lot more fun.
We left on Sunday after church and got there in the late afternoon. The weather was beautiful, so we spent the evening out in the country in Wolfgang's sister's garden/yard. (Here because of space restrictions in the cities, people often rent or buy pieces of land in the country and make them into whatever they want-- gardens, or just a yard away from home.)
We stayed the night at Roberta's and the next day we went to Ludwigsburg to see the castle there which was amazing. Apparently the guy who used to live there loved fairy tales, especially Rapunzel, so he built what he thought her tower should look like on the grounds. Now the castle and grounds are more of a museum and they've even built an entire village made up of an assortment of fairy tales. It was a lot of fun, but after the walking around the castle for several hours we were exhausted. So we headed back to Roberta's for a late lunch and then said goodbye. We had a lot of fun catching up since we don't get to see them that often and hope to visit again soon. Thanks guys for letting us crash your Easter festivities.

Hansel and Gretel

Rapunzel' Tower

As for me....

And now for the reasons I haven't been blogging...I've been pretty busy too I guess. In January I went back to work teaching English, but only started with one student again--one hour a week---not too bad. I started taking Pilates which you still can't tell from my waistline or any other part of my body for that matter. I've also been doing a lot more photography. I've done about7 or 8 shoots in the last month alone, one of which was Dani's (Etienne's brother)engagement session. Congrats Dani. I'll post some of those pics later. I've thrown one baby shower with my co-host Stephi and will be throwing another one tomorrow actually. The first went really well and I'll let you know how the second goes. Sean and I have been working on my website. I say I, but really it was all Sean's talent, and my nagging. Sorry Sean. I will also post on that. We went to Germany for Easter-- lots of fun with Roberta and Wolfgang (Etienne's sister and bro-in-law) and I've been having fun with Siena. She is pretty amazing. Keep reading there are many more posts to come.

First Foods

At Siena's last Dr. appointment, the doc encouraged me to start her on solid foods, so.... we have. Here is the video of the first attempt. The doc said to try zuchinni or carrots to see which one she liked better. (I was secretly hoping for the zuchinni since it isn't so sweet.) So we tried it and here is the result. This is actually the second video which is when we gave her the carrots. It was pretty obvious what her choice was.

Survival Weekend

Some time ago, Etienne became obsessed with all things Native American and reads everything he can get his hands on about them. Because of this fascination and one with the human body and it's miraculous abilities, he decided that one day he wanted to do a survival weekend, where he would sleep outside on the coldest night of the year with no sleeping bag and just the basic necessities. He has talked about this almost from the time we were married.
Well a couple months ago this is exactly what he did. He had warm clothes, a blanket, food, a machete, and our close friend Oli. They hiked, cut down a tree so they could cross a river, hiked some more, cut down some more trees, hiked into a valley, set up camp and cut down a lot more trees (firewood). I must say that not all the trees were big, but really I'm surprised there were any left in the area. All in all, he loved it and has planned to make it an annual event. If there are any other adventurers out there interested, let us know. I'm sure he could take you along next year. The only catch is it is in the Swiss mountains, but if you can make it, I'm sure he is game.

(No, that isn't where they needed the tree.)

Blog Backlog

So over the next several days, I will be backlogging all the many htings that kept me from bloggin over the last few months, so get ready and here we go....

3 months of nothing

So guess who's back?!? Well hopefully me. Things are busy, but really there's no excuse. I am sure everyone else had plenty of busy to keep them blogging. I am just a slacker. So what has happened? Siena is now approaching her 5 month mark rapidly which really doesn't seem possible at all. She is getting so big and is active in that she always has something she wants to be doing and is trying to move, but no rolling over or crawling yet. We're waiting, but are ok with her not growing too fast.

Moving on

So we are trying to figure out when is the best time to move Siena into her own room. When she was born I remember saying that I only wanted her in the room with us for a month but as that month drew closer I felt some anxiety because it just seemed too early for her to be so far away from us.

(no that isn't our nursery)
Now however, I think it is the right time to move her---despite still feeling like it is a bit far away-- but there are a million litle reasons stopping us from doing it. So give a sista some advice. When did you move your kids into the nursery and why was it best then?