Quick Trip to Italy

We went to Italy for two days before taking our flight back home. We stayed with our friend Carly and our friend Riann was awesome enough to cancel her plans for two days and show us all around.

This is a view of Vicenza - Vicenza hosts the Army base that our friends our stationed

The Church of St Mary of Mount Berico is a beautiful church up on a hill. Before the church was built, the people of Vicenza had been suffering from a plague for years. The legend is that Mary appeared twice and told them if they built this church the plague would stop, and it did.

We went to the Castle in Soave. It was a beautiful little hike up through the cute little town.

Dinner with our friends Riann and Carly. Yum :)

 The second day we headed to Verona, mostly notable as the setting for Romeo and Juliet.

Juliet's House

beautiful bell tower that we climbed up because the brocher labeled the elevator for only the laziest

view from the top

Verona's castle

We had a wonderful time even in the January weather!!!

Germany

We have several friends who are living in Europe at the moment, and DC has access to an awesome Space-A flight that goes from Baltimore to Italy. Space-A, for those who are not military, is a system were military members can travel for free on empty seats of military flights. Our friends Greg and Andrea have been living in Munich for the past year. We decided last minute that we needed to head to Munich before they left and also see our friends Riann and Carly (husbands deployed) in Italy. Dave's mom was nice enough to come watch the kids so we could go kid free.
I learned a lot about Space-A this go around including that in early January, everyone is trying to get home from pending Christmas in the US. We weren't able to get on the flight we wanted going out, so I just bought tickets to leave the next day (but we did make is Space-A back home with no problems).
Germany was amazing!! Greg and Andrea were the best tour guides we could have asked for :).
First stop was Neuschwanstein Castle which is the castle that the Disney castle is modeled after. It even snowed the night before so we had a breath taking powder of snow over everything.

beautiful view on the walk to the castle

The castle King Ludwig lived in while Neuschwanstein was being built

The snow had caused the grounds keepers to close the pathway over to the bridge that you take pictures from. Well, Dave talked us into hopping the fence and going anyway. It was like exploring a fairy tale because of the beautiful snowy path and no other tourists.

path to the bridge

view from bridge

my favorite picture

 Greg drove us around on the Autobahn ... exciting for Amy :)

We went to the charming town of Rothenburg. It is surronded by a stone wall and inside has many cute shops - mostly Christmas shops.

Kathe Wohlfahrt was the crazy three story shop we spent way too much money in

On the way back from Rothenburg, we stopped in the cute town of Nurenberg. We ate at the oldest sausage house in Germany which had AMAZING nurenberg sausages.

  


If you see the cup in Dave's hand, it has gluhwein in it. It's this warm, prune tasting wine that they sell in the winter. Dave had a good time getting it every night :)

Then we have Munich. Munich is shockingly nice and clean, it is the Beverly Hills of Germany.

One of the monk statues

Marienplatz

Beautiful church we had mass in

Odeonsplatz

People rub the lion's shield for luck

pretzels every where

Grilling sausages

We also went to the town of oberammergau, but forgot to take any pictures ... oops. It had amazing little wood work shops.
Coming soon ... the Italy post.

Pre Christmas Fun

Since this is our last year in DC for Christmas, we did all the thing we have been talking about doing but have never actually done. As I am short on time this evening, this will be a story through pictures blog post :).

A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theater (we had amazing seats)

Really bad phone picture of us at the Kennedy Center for The Nutcracker

First attempt at picture with Santa .... pretty happy with it considering the three little ones were afraid of him. It was so fun and magical to watch Jack interact with Santa.

Army Band Christmas Concert. Not the same without the Doyles, but lots of fun 

Santa came to visit

Hi Santa!

Have a Merry Christmas!!!!

Kate's 1st Birthday

Happy Birthday to my sweet little Kate who turned 1 year old last week. I still find myself looking at her all the time and thinking "I really have a baby girl!" I'm not sure that feeling will ever end because she has been a pure joy to raise. She wins me (and everyone) over with her sweet smiles. She loves to eat and get attention. Kate can already say mama, (J)ack, baby (while pointing to herself), avocado, hi, bye (while waving...and smiling).
I was excited to celebrate her first birthday with a tutu, girly balloons, and a super girly cake, None of the boys had any kind of dessert until their first birthday cake. We tried so hard to have that be true for Kate as well, but she managed to get it twice.

Swiped some frosting off her daddy's birthday cake while sitting on his lap

found a brownie in the trash ... very proud of herself

The birthday outfit

 

The "cake smash", or in her case the "princess-like delicate picking at the frosting".

and the proud parents :)

Thanksgiving

 We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving this year. Everything (except the turkey) got done really early in the day this year. It was nice to have a peaceful and restful Thaksgiving day. I have grown to love reflecting on all that I have to be Thankful for. I am, and have always been, the most thankful for the wonderful people in my life. This year, I am thankful that the Army selected Dave to pursue a PhD next year. There is so much to look forward to in the next phase of our life. I can't wait to see what is in store for our family.

This is what my table looks like these days with four little turkeys around it.

It was Kate's last first holiday. I wish she could just stay this age forever.

Tim and Chris actually ate off plates (without throwing them or any of the food) for the first time on Thanksgiving. What a wonderful gift!

This is a video of Jack singing his Thanksgiving song the next day. Also note the flowers above him ... getting them for me was all his idea.

Halloween Pictures

I hope everyone had a great Halloween. Dave and Jack carved pumpkins. Jack had preschool on Halloween and they had a cute little party. Jack wore an awesome frog costume that my brother and his wife got for him. The pictures don't even do it justice. At night the costume sparkled and people were stopping on the street to take pictures of him. I have never gotten so many comments!! We went to a friend's house for Trick or Treating - Chris fell asleep on the drive over and Tim made it clear that he did not want to dress up. I didn't make him. Kate had her first Halloween where she wore an orange tutu during the day and dressed up as a Cup-Kate at night.  Here are some of our pictures :)

Preschool Halloween party

Costume Parade (Jack is the frog)

The Cup - Kate