Life in Europe

Germany at Easter

2011-08-17T21:51:00.022+02:00

Easter and the two following weeks we spent in Germany this year. It was the first time that we went back as a family in two years. We took the campervan and mostly stayed in and near Koblenz with Kerstin's sister and parents.

On Easter Sunday we had a nice walk with Kerstin's grandparents, parents, auntie, brother and sister with family. The walk was not as long as the Easter walks used to be before there were four little ones (Yana, Anya and their cousins) joining in, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. The children found little chocolate Easter eggs that the Easter bunny (great-grandpa Klaus) had lost along the path. We set up a table and seating under the campervan's awning and had a yummy picnic. The next day Kerstin's sister cooked a yummy three-course lunch.

Easter Sunday walk with Kerstin's family.

Setting up the picnic

Yummy food

Klaus and three of his great-grandchildren

Us with Kevin enjoying Nina's Easter lunch

We all had a great time in Germany, catching up with family and friends and enjoying the summery weather. Lindsay managed to go out on a couple of bike rides, Kerstin had a re-union with four friends from high-school, and Yana and Anya enjoyed playing with their cousins.

Lindsay building a dam

Kerstin and Nina with their little ones

Oma with Yana and Oscar

Picnic with friends

Yana and Oscar playing at the playground

Us with Anya at a beergarden

Castle along the Rhine

Ferry trip across the Rhine with Oma

Visiting great-grandma Hanna

On the way back we stopped off in Zeeland, Holland. Lindsay looked at the Delta works and then we all relaxed at a beach for an afternoon. We also paid a brief visit to Brugge in Belgium, enough to take a few quick shots, but not to really experience this picturesque town.

Our campervan at the beach

The kids playing in the water

Yana meeting a lady in Middelburg

Brugge

Spring has finally arrived

2011-03-23T22:52:00.018+01:00

Over the last few days we have finally had the feeling that spring has arrived. The sun has been shining, it has been warm, and there are flowers and new leaves on the trees.

Last weekend our German friends Silke and Stefan stayed with us with their almost six month old son Niklas. Yana and Anya were really excited about the "bebe" (as Anya called him). We had a great day in Windsor with a picnic alongside the Long Walk, with views of Windsor Castle. The weather was great and we thought it was appropriate to have our first outdoor-ice cream of the year.

Our picnic in front of Windsor Castle.

Yana and Anya having fun playing around after our picnic.

Today we spontaneously decided to go for a bike ride to Hurley. Yana was in nursery, so we only had Anya. She was really good and enjoyed the hour and a half in her little bike seat.

Lindsay and Anya are having a look at the boats in Hurley.

Kerstin and Anya are enjoying the sunshine.

Christmas time

2011-01-19T14:56:00.011+01:00

The entire December felt quite Christmas-y to us this year. In early December Kerstin and the girls went to Germany for a week. They met up with friends and family and went to our nephew Oscar's birthday party. There was lots of snow around and they went to a Christmas market in Koblenz, where Kerstin got to have a mulled wine and the girls got to ride on a carousel.

Our two little angels waiting patiently at the airport.

Sledge-ride with Oma in snowy Kehlbach.

Oscar is very excited about his awesome plane-birthday-cake

Anya is practising her fork handling skills with birthday cake.

Cards, gingerbread house and Christmas tree

A week before Christmas it started to snow heavily here in Maidenhead. There was chaos on the roads, airports, etc., but we had a great time. We went for walks in the snow and Lindsay built a huge igloo outside our house (with great help from our friend Clare and from Yana). Our friends Nick and Clare came for a pre-Christmas dinner the weekend before Christmas and, because of their flight to Germany being delayed, also spent Christmas day with us.

Anya was not so sure about the snow...

...whereas Yana loved it.

Our backyard was covered in snow.

Inspecting the igloo.

Lindsay's masterpiece.

We had a very social Christmas this year: with Drinks at our friends Emma and Mark's house for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day with Nick and Clare and a Raklette Dinner with our friends Natalia and John on Boxing Day.

Yana hanging up all the Christmas cards she got from her friends at Pre-School and Anya "helping out"

Unwrapping the Christmas presents

Santa was busy...

Pancakes on Christmas Morning (with Nick and Clare)

A chilly Christmas Day.

Lindsay walking on (frozen) water.

Boxing Day stroll through the snow.

Boys trip

2010-12-26T23:13:00.014+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, Kerstin was in Germany with the kids, so it was only common sense to head off on a boy's weekend. Nick and I took the Friday off, and decided to head down south as we had seen some nice piccies of the south coast near Seaford and figured that was as much planning as we needed.

On the Thursday night, Nick came out to Maidenhead and we set off to Brighton as the first stop. As Nick works at Tesco as a buyer, he insisted that we camp the night at 'his place' - the Hove Tesco extra. It proved the perfect spot, with lots of parking, nearby food shopping and petrol.

On Friday morning we went into Brighton for a quick look-see, visiting the tacky Brighton Pier with its fascinating games (there were literally hundreds of these).

We quickly decided to move on somewhere more interesting, and biked back to the campervan and escaped! Our next stop was our main (only) goal - the Seven Sisters Cliffs. Much like the more famous White Cliffs of Dover, but without the eyesore of Dover in the middle :-)

We found a great spot on the east side of the Seven Sisters and had a quick look - and went for a run in the freezing wind.

We then hung out in the car park for a few hours utilising the campervan soundsystem until teatime. For dinner we headed back to a pub we had seen on our way over, and then spent the night in a quiet spot with panoramic views nearby.

On Saturday, we headed back to the cliffs and spent a few hours looking around in detail, as it was low tide which gave us a great opportunity to look around. The shoreline is fantastic, with the views of the chalk cliffs with their lines of flint, plus the patterns made in the chalk and flint on the 'seafloor'.

We then walked east along the cliffs to see it from above, where the views were amazing.

Next on our tour, we had spotted that Battle, as in 'Battle of Hastings' was fairly close, so decided to head there. It was interesting to learn the history in more depth - Nick had seen a re-enactment a couple of months earlier, but was also interested in seeing the site in more detail than possible when mobbed by thousands of people.

We decided to start heading north, as I needed to pick Kerstin up from Stansted airport the following afternoon (north of London). As we had just joined the English Heritage Trust, we used that as a way to pick our route. We discovered that Darwin's house 'Down house' was on the south side of London, and almost directly on our route, and decided to head there the following morning and therefore camp somewhere on the way for the night. Our route took us to Penshurst where we overnighted in the scenic grounds of Penshurst Place, completing a trio of 7 Star accommodation for the weekend.

The following morning we drove to Down house, and because it only opened at 11am, went for another run while waiting for it to open. Because of the timing of Kerstin's flight, we didn't have nearly enough time to go through the house and garden in detail. Because they have attempted to recreate many of his experiments etc, so you can see how he came to his conclusions, it requires more than the hour we had, before hooning north to pick up Kerstin.

All in all it was a weekend well spent - On Monday I had the eerie feeling I had been away for a week...

Kiwi Reunions

2010-11-23T23:10:00.018+01:00

We recently had two kiwi reunions at our house. The first one was in early October with Matthijn, Nick, Clare, Cynthia, Ben, Matt and Jo; and the second one was in late October with Cynthia, Steve and David.

Kiwi Reunion Number 1
When everyone, except for Ben, had arrived at our house, we set off in three cars to a small town called Bourne End. We walked over a railway bridge and on the other side of the Thames was a pub called "The Bounty", which is only reachable by boat or on foot. We had a couple of drinks and the kids played on the playground. It was just warm enough to sit outside. Ben met us at the pub on his bike.

Matt and Jo had to head back to Bath, but the rest of us enjoyed a warm soup at our house and participated in a chocolate tasting. We did a blind tasting of both milk chocolate and 70% dark chocolate. The winner for the milk chocolate was Lindt, which was surprinsingly the loser in the dark chocolate category. There the winner was Marks & Spencers followed by Tesco Finest.

On the Sunday only Matthijn, Cynthia and Ben were left. Cynthia, Ben and Kerstin went for a bike ride to the Jubilee river, where they met Lindsay, Matthijn and the kids, who had taken the car and brought the kayak with them. While two people got to kayak on the river, the others biked along side. A pizza in our sunny back yard rounded up the weekend.

Kiwi Reunion Number 2
The second reunion took place at Halloween. We didn't really celebrate, but we carved out a pumpkin and made pumpkin soup. Instead of a chocolate tasting, we had a whiskey tasting. And our outing was to Windsor.

Lindsay, Kerstin and the kids took the campervan to the Great park. Steve, Cynthia and David biked and we all managed to eventually meet up after a few misunderstandings. We then walked next to the Long Walk (you are not allowed to bike or PUSH a bike along it!) into Windsor and had a meal in a pub there.

Anya is 1

2010-10-15T21:59:00.002+02:00

Shortly after Yana's 3rd birthday, and during our holiday in Sweden, it was Anya's 1st birthday. As mentioned in our Sweden post we weren't able to celebrate Anya's actual birthday properly. Therefore we had a party with four of Anya's little friends when we got back. Yana had to help blow out the candle, but Anya was pretty good at eating the cake (and all the rest of the food).

Anya has obviously changed incredibly in the last year. She is now a little toddler, expressing her desires and uttering her first words. She loves her big sister and is always really excited when we pick Yana up from nursery. Her favourite activities are climbing, walking around, putting her hands into shoes, hugging her dolly and eating (as long as it's proper food and she is allowed to feed herself).

Anya is very cheerful and happy. She is a little clingy at times, but on the plus-side that makes her very cuddly. As Yana always says: "Anni is soooooo cute".

Yana is 3

2010-10-15T21:30:00.006+02:00

It's increadible how time flies, especially in regards to children. We can still remember being woken up at night and changing her nappies and all of the sudden our little girl is 3 years old. There are new challenges we are having to face now, but most of the time we are able to enjoy our cheerful, chatty and caring daughter.

For Yana's actual birthday we went swimming in Windsor and had a picnic by the river. We also had a little party with three of her little friends. She got lots of nice presents, her favourite being a balance bike, which she has immediately managed to develop dangerously fast speeds on (no more biking without a helmet!).

Yana currently loves: playing with Anya, going trampolining/climbing at the phoenix gym, riding her balance bike, going to the playground, reading books, painting (usually her hands and all the way up to her arms), watching Peppa Pig and going to play groups. She has started nursery two days a week. In the beginning she was really excited, now it has levelled off a bit, but we are hoping she'll get enthusiastic about it again soon.

Wedding Number 2

2010-09-15T15:22:00.017+02:00

The second wedding we went to this summer was Veronica and Charlie's wedding in Sweden. Again we turned it into a two week holiday to make the most of the trip.

We flew into Stockholm and went straight to Uppsala, where Veronica had her hen's do. Nina, Philip and their children were in a hotel room right next to ours. While Nina and Kerstin went out for dinner with Veronica and her

friends, the guys entertained the children.

From Uppsala we drove to a small town near Gävle, called

Skutskär. We stayed with

Kerstin's friend Malin and her family, who Kerstin had met while she was still at

school and hadn't seen for 13

years. Malin was very hospitable and the children enjoyed playing with Malin's two boys. The children had a swim in the local river, we went to IKEA (very Swedish) and to a zoo.

On our long drive up North to the wedding venue we stopped off at

a camping-ground in Hudiksvall. Here we met up with Nina,

Philip, Nick, Clare, Jana and

Julian and enjoyed a social evening outside our little hut. There was a nice beach where Yana had a swim. The water was reasonably chilli, but she didn't mind.

The remainder of the drive to Ulvon was done on Anya's first birthday, which we weren't able

to celebrate properly. We had some chocolate muffins on the boat-trip and sang "Happy

Birthday" a few times. I'm pretty

sure she didn't mind.

The island of Ulvon, where Veronica and Charlie's wedding was held, was very picturesque.

We stayed in a hut overlooking the small boats in the harbour.

The wedding itself was held on a hill with magnificent views. We all had to hike up to it, resulting in the women swapping their heels for sneakers. Lindsay and Phil were entertaining the

children with lots of rainsins and

bread sticks, so that they only

really distracted us from listening to the vows. The ceremony was very romantic, including some beautiful singing from Veronica's sister-in-law. The reception was lots of fun, especially since we managed to find a babysitter and we were able to enjoy it child-free.

After the wedding we headed back South to a small town called Jarvso. We stayed in an old (and

quite basic) cabin, which was a

little miserable in the rain. But we caught up with Nina, Phil, Nick and Clare, who were staying in a holiday house nearby and visited a wild-life park with them.

Our last days were spent in Stockholm, where

we met up with Nick and Clare again. We stayed in a hotel room, from which we had an amazing view of the cruise ships and

ferries in the harbour. Especially

at night they looked really pretty

with all their lights on. Being in the same room with the children meant that we had to spend our evenings in the bathroom, but apart from that it all worked out reasonably well.

We went into Stockholm every day: Kerstin with the children on the bus for free (because of the

buggy, as we found out from

the locals) and Lindsay on the rental bike from the hotel. We took several boat trips, walked through Gamla Stan, looked at

the sunken Vasa ship and went to the outdoor museum of

Skansen.

It wasn't a relaxing holiday (with children it never is), but nevertheless we had a very enjoyable time experiencing Swedish culture, meeting

up with friends and soaking up a

bit of sun.

Wedding Number 1

2010-09-15T14:19:00.007+02:00

Our summer holidays this year have been largely determined for us, based on two weddings we wanted to attend. The first one was the wedding of our friends Michael and Carmen in Munich, which gave us a nice excuse to visit our friends over there.

At Gatwick airport when waiting for the flight, Anya had a little accident and of course we didn't have any spare clothes as usual. The only clothes we managed to find for her in the entire airport was an English soccer outfit. With the Soccer World Champs being on, everyone thought we were very patriotic English people who had dressed up their little "boy".

We stayed with our friends Anna and Stefan just outside Munich for a week. The girls loved playing with little Tim and Benny and we got to make use of Anna and Stefan's babysitter to go out for a drink with them.

We realised that time was far too short, when we rushed from meeting one friend to another. It was nice to meet the Mummies from Yana's old playgroup again and to notice how we all hadn't changed but our children had more than doubled in age.

Unfortunately the weather was not very good. It was raining most of the time, including during the stag and hen's dos and the wedding itself.

At least Michael and Carmen were prepared and everyone got an umbrella in one of the four theme colours. The wedding was very beautiful despite the rain. It was held in Freising, with the reception in small village nearby. The guests came from many different countries and were very interesting to talk to, the food was great, the venues were lovely and, of course, the bride was beautiful.

Unfortunately us being the only ones with children, we couldn't quite enjoy everything as much as we would have liked. The nice dinner was a little interrupted by getting the girls to go to sleep and we couldn't party as long as long as the rest of the guests.

The day after the wedding Lindsay flew back home, while Kerstin took the train up to her parents' place with the girls. She spent a little over a week there, again meeting up with lots of friends and family and this time being able to enjoy proper summer weather.

Our new place

2010-08-26T14:42:00.010+02:00

Now that we have been living in our new place in Maidenhead for almost 5 months, it's about time that we post some photos of it.

We live in a reasonably nice neighbourhood close to a park with a great playarea. We can walk into town (in about half an hour) and the best thing: we are a lot closer to Lindsay's work. He can drive in 15 minutes or bike and train in about half an hour.

We've had quite a nice summer so far with numerous days spent outside in our garden. Yana and Anya love playing in the sandpit, riding their little bikes or scooter around, or playing with water.

In June we went to Germany and in August to Sweden, and of course both kids had their birthdays, all of which we will write about in separate posts.

Anya is eight months old already

2010-04-09T22:51:00.003+02:00

With Anya time just seems to fly by. In a blink of an eye she is already eight months old, crawling, sitting up and pulling herself up. She made a huge leap in her development over the last two weeks, coinciding with us shifting into our new place in Maidenhead (photos of the new place to follow). Instead of causing us trouble, it was actually quite good because it kept her occupied and she was able to entertain herself while we were packing, disassemblying and cleaning.

Visitors from Germany

2010-04-09T22:34:00.006+02:00

In March our German friends Anna and Stefan with their two sons Tim and Benjamin came to visit us. They stayed for ten days and for the entire time the sun shone. The weather was amazing. It was still a little chilly at times, but there was hardly a cloud to be seen the entire time. We went on a few trips into the surrounding area to go for walks, to pubs or to the Cotswold wildlife park. Here are some photos:

Lindsay and Stefan with the buggies on our walk near Ashton Keynes.

Outside a pub in Ashton Keynes.

Anna and I with the little ones in Lechlade.

Anya and I having fun on the big slide at the Cotswold wildlife park.

Family photo at the Cotswold wildlife park.

Stefan and Lindsay went to the Severn river to see a rare 5 star bore (or tidal wave), as the tide came in, which despite the nasty frost attracted dozens of surfers eager to catch their 2-60 seconds riding the wave

Trip to Germany

2010-04-09T22:16:00.002+02:00

At the end of January I took on the challenge of flying to Germany on my own with the two girls. It worked out quite well, apart from a bit of an adjustment phase once we got there. Because we were all sleeping in one room, the girls woke each other up and I ended up with two crying children. But after a couple of days they went back to sleeping well.

We had a really nice time staying with my sister and her family. Here are a couple of photos of Yana and Anya with their cousins Oscar and Alexander:

We also stayed with my parents and met up with lots of friends and family. While we were there, we were snowed in for part of the time. My parents live in a small village which doesn't always get cleared by the snow vehicles. There was more snow around than there had been for years.
This is Yana in the hire-buggy at the Cologne airport just before taking off to go back home to Daddy.

Kerstin's 30th Birthday Weekend

2010-01-21T22:33:00.005+01:00

Here are some photos of my 30th birthday weekend. Thanks to everyone who came along

(from near and far) to help celebrate and make this such an awesome weekend.

Catching up and drinking lots of tea.

Yana helping to prepare the food.

Anya entertaining the guests (here Orianne).

Blowing out the candles on Lindsay's impressive chocolate-birthday-cake.

Playing in the snow.

More playing in the snow.

Yana was having fun too.

With Clare.

Lindsay and Steve's snow sculpture.

The Big Freeze

2010-01-21T22:19:00.004+01:00

The new year brought us lots of snow here in Swindon. Some were very happy about it: for example the children, who didn't have to go to school and could build snowmen instead. Some were less happy: such as the people who were struggling to get to work or who were relying on services such as post delivery or rubbish collection. Lindsay managed to work from home and Kerstin and the girls went out for a few nice walks through the winter wonderland.

Our house all covered in snow.

The path leading up to "our" playground.

Lindsay and Yana's snowman.

Christmas

2009-12-31T15:44:00.007+01:00

Our Christmas was pretty quiet this year, because we couldn't spend it in Germany. It was the first Christmas, however, that Yana was really able to comprehend. And the first Christmas as a family of four. We celebrated Christmas Eve with biscuits, mulled wine, presents, and Raklette.

Yana really admired the Christmas tree ("meinabaum" from the German word Weihnachtsbaum) and the decoration that we had made together.

Among her presents was a backpack, which she has been filling with snacks and turning into a baby-carrier for her doll ever since.

On Christmas Day we went for a walk in the (remaining) snow. We really appreciate our new doubledecker buggy, which allows us to go for longer walks without being cruel to poor little Yana.

On Boxing Day we did a trip to Reading, where we walked along the river and through the shopping streets. We didn't do any shopping ourselves, because everything was packed with bargain-hunters.

We had a nice meal at a running sushi restaurant. Yana liked to play with all the little plates and lids.

Working and USA

2009-12-30T22:54:00.009+01:00

Now that I'm finally working full time again, things are getting a little more interesting again. Polycom has certainly been proactive with training - I've been training basically full time for the entire 7 weeks I've been there! The finale for one section was a trip to the US for a week long intensive session ending with a presentation to the CEO of Polycom... we were second in our group, so we were quite happy with that.

Here are a few piccies of interesting stuff:

This is one of the ridiculously huge 'cars' we had while over there. It had a huge V8, but didn't have much get-up-and-go off the line - probably because it weighed about 15 tons...

Some of the lights of the San Francisco skyline

This was a little xmas market we happened across in San Jose - they stole this ride from never-never land!

I didn't have enough time to get up to much else, hence only 3 pictures. However (always a name dropper) I had a quick chat with Helen Clark in the LA airport lounge on the way home - always interesting when you see someone you recognise!

We are looking forward to 2010 - things are getting back to normal now, and we have started making a few plans to keep ourselves entertained over the next few months - you'll just have to keep an eye on the blog to see what they are ;-)

Anya at four months

2009-12-05T22:18:00.006+01:00

Tomorrow Anya will be four months old already. Time flies, especially with the second child. It feels like only yesterday that she was lying there all helpless and innocent. Now she is turning more and more into a little person.

Anya is such a sweet little angel. She has been sleeping through the night for almost two months now. She's really happy just lying there watching us all, particularly Yana. She hardly cries, gets really excited when she gets attention, is really smiley and chatty and has started being able to play with toys. She's getting a bit more mobile now too, being able to roll from her back onto her front and vice versa. She has been teething for a while, so we think that the first tooth is probably not far away.

Our sweet little angel sleeping.

We couldn't avoid it: Like Yana, Anya also sucks her thumb
and she doesn't mind whether it is her left or right one.

Going for a walk in the pram.

Anya can now hold and play with toys.

She loves rolling onto her belly.

Look at that cute little tongue.

Autumn walk near Ashton Keynes.

2009-10-18T14:06:00.005+02:00

Yana enjoyed being high up with a view. We took Lindsay's binoculars and she watched the ducks and swans close up.

Anya slept the entire way.

Some nice old Cotswold stone houses in Ashton Keynes.

Autumn visitors

2009-10-18T13:33:00.005+02:00

This autumn we had two groups of visitors: Our friends Nick and Clare, and Kerstin's sister with her family.

With Nick and Clare we drove to Bath for a day, where we met up with our friends Matt and Jo, had a yummy lunch, looked around the city and ate yummy cookies at a cafe.

The Bath Abbey.

Clare, Kerstin and Jo in front of Pulteney Bridge.

Nina, Philip, Oscar and Alexander stayed with us for a week. We showed them our day-to-day life and took them to the Cotswold village of Burford. Additionally they went on a couple of day trips on their own to London and Bath.

Yana making music with her cousin Oscar.

The two little ones - Anya and Alexander (born 4 days apart).

Trip to the beer garden.

The main street of Burford.

Our two little cuties

2009-09-29T21:38:00.004+02:00

Here are a few recent photos of our two little cuties:

This is currently the best babysitter for Yana: Getting her to "do the dishes". She usually ends up with wet clothes, but it is well worth it and she has a great time.

Yana is learning all about the techniques of shaving. Let's hope she won't have to use them.

Anya is still spening a lot of time sleeping...

...but she has more and more wake-phases, in which she makes cute noises...

...and smiles at us. Finally we are being rewarded for our hard work.

Trip to Castle Combe

2009-09-29T21:19:00.003+02:00

Here are a few photos of one of the first day trips, we did with little Anya - to a village called Castle Combe together with our friends Nick and Clare. We had a look at the cute old stone cottages and then had a meal in a pub.

My little sister...

2009-09-03T13:52:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone,

as you all know I got a little sister four weeks ago. Her name is Aany - well that's what I call her, my parents call her Anya. She is very cute. She sleeps a lot and sometimes cries (wa-wa). I like to hug and kiss her (more than I like hugging my parents). I always tell my parents when her eyes are open or closed, because they don't open that often yet. I'm looking forward to her being able to actually play with the toys I give her.

This is Aany sleeping:

This is Aany awake in the car seat:

And this is me with Aany:

2009-08-08T14:18:00.008+02:00

This is our new little daughter

Anya Olivia Sandford

born on 6th August 2009 at 4:52am

in the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

She weighed 3615 g (7.97 lb).

The birth was fast (under 3 hours) and without any complications and mother and baby are happy and well.

Big sister Yana is very excited about the "bebi".

The main activity at the moment is sleeping.

Yana is 2.

2009-08-01T21:39:00.005+02:00

Hi everyone,

it's me again, Yana, writing as a two-year-old "big girl" (Well, I always say that I'm a boy. I don't really understand the difference yet.) It was my birthday last Monday. I celebrated with a picnic with some friends on Sunday and a breakfast with a couple more friends on my actual birthday. I got a nice birthday cake and lots of cool presents.

This photo was taken on my birthday with my tricycle. Aparently I am going to get a big bike soon (a balance bike), which I'm very excited about. I love bikes.

I really like dressing up at the moment. I have been trying out different head- and footwear and a few capes. What do you think? Does this suit me?

This is me with my friend Julia on the swing at Lydiard Park playground. We were having a great time.

My favourite game at the moment is "raining" - I think that it's raining and I cover up my teddy in the buggy so that he doesn't get wet. Sometimes I cover up myself too. The game was developed on one of the many rainy days we've had recently.

Here I am sitting in the baby car seat that Mama and Daddy have put into the spare room. They say it's for the baby. I'm not quite sure what baby they mean, but I guess I'll find out soon enough.

This video shows me doing a roly poly. I can do them all by myself now.

A well-deserved weekend off

2009-07-08T21:55:00.005+02:00

Last weekend I had a well-deserved weekend off. After 23 months of being a full-time parent and not having a single night away, I decided to leave Yana with Lindsay and head away for a weekend. I took the train to London and spent a couple of days with my friend Clare, who recently moved to London from New Zealand.

The weather was really nice and sunny. Most of our meals were picnics in the park consisting of salads and lots of yummy berries. We visited the Borough and Camden markets, went to different parks around the city, walked along the canals and Little Venice and caught up with a bunch of other kiwis. On the Sunday morning I had a nice brunch with my friend Cynthia.

It was great not having to look at my watch in order to maintain Yana's eating and sleeping routine, not being woken up by the Yana-alarm in the morning (although I still didn't manage to stay in bed past 8am), being able to concentrate on my own meal without having to worry about Yana making a big mess and not having to change any nappies.

Berries at the Borough Markets

Anna, Clare, Natasha and I

Southwark Cathedral

Camden Lock

Regent Canal

Pen Y Fan and Wales

2009-06-29T21:16:00.009+02:00

A friend from Munich and I decided to do a little adventuring and climbing and because we are real men, we didn't head off to Alaska where you can climb in cool refreshing conditions like some people we know, we decided to challenge ourselves in the hot muggy conditions of Southern Wales.

Firstly we headed to Pembrokeshire in the South-Western corner of Wales where we checked out a couple of castles and aclimatised to the conditions on a beach or two.

Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber

We then headed to Brecon Beacon National Park to take on our main challenge - its highest peak - Pen Y Fen!

Its a little known fact that Pen Y Fen is actually the highest peak in the world at 8860m (+ or - a 0, which we all know is zero, so it cannot alter the result), compared to Mt Everest at 8848m. This is generally covered up by the mountaineering community - I suspect simply because they struggle to pronounce the name - which is shameful and wrong (even if Welsh IS a bit weird)!

We started bright and early, as you have to on these bigger undertakings. It was my first attempt at a mountain since breaking my achilles nearly 4 months ago, and Stefan was a bit concerned about his knee, so we needed to leave some room for error.

The weather wasn't looking promising, but like fools, we ignored the tragic story of little Tommy (who came to a tragic end - as described in our guide book) and started out anyway. It drizzled a little as we climbed and the top was normally lost in swirling mist. We figured that if the worst came, we could always catch one of the many sheep on the slopes and cuddle against the conditions.

Stefan near the summit

After a difficult struggle we reached the top where the poor sheep grazing were struggling for breath in the thick, oxygen rich atmosphere, that you only get at these altitudes. After pausing for a quick photo op, we headed back down before we had to worry about altitude sickness - we hadn't bothered bringing bottled oxygen with us.

The thick mist opened up the possibility of making an error and dying on the way back down - the fate of many an unfortunate mountaineer. However after being a little worried we had taken the wrong ridgeline back down, we arrived safely at the campervan.

However, the life threatening danger didn't stop there. The Welsh has an interesting habit of forming field boundaries with dyke like 'walls' - and the roads leading to and from Pen Y Fan were particularly narrow leaving little room for error.

While leaving we were cruising along on our little Welsh autobahn, and very nearly had a fatal accident - as we came around a corner, a chicken was right in the middle of the road - and I only just managed to break in time! I was almost tempted to not break, but we had enough food for the drive home already.

The end.

Yana is approaching her second birthday

2009-06-25T22:23:00.004+02:00

Time flies... Little Yana is approaching her second birthday (27.7.) and soon she won't seem so little to us anymore (when we have her little brother or sister to compare her to). It's amazing how much she has changed since she was a little baby. She can now speak two languages (not quite fluently yet), she has her own opinion on things (often that means an initial 'no' until you convince her otherwise or make a deal with her), she loves bikes ('bite'), cars ('audo'), books, cats ('meouw'), rabbits, spiders ('bider') and water (especially out of the tap), and she is very sociable.
Here are some recent photos of our little sunshine...

Yana loves going to the playground and climbing up anything, no matter how high it is.

Yana in her Tumble Tots t-shirt. Tumble Tots is a physical education group we go to each week.

Yana is having a snack outside in our garden. She's wearing her favourite hat and gum-boots, which she often doesn't even want to take off when she's inside.

After Yana repeatedly managed to get herself out of her sleeping bag, like this, we have now moved her into a "big girl" bed with a "big girl" blanket and she seems to like it so far.

Yana in bed with Daddy and Mama.

Exploring more of the Cotswolds

2009-06-21T14:24:00.005+02:00

Last weekend we spent a nice sunny day exploring more of the Cotswolds. We took the campervan so that Yana could have her day sleep, while Kerstin explored Bourton-on-the-water and Lindsay was able to do some studying. Once Yana woke up we took her little tricycle and had a look around Bourton-on-the-water. The town was full of people sunbathing along the shores of the river and cooling down their feet in the freezing cold water. There are lots of cute little stone houses and alleyways, low bridges crossing over the river and very expensive ice-cream.

Yana wasn't too impressed by the cold water. She kept pulling her feet up like a little frog when Lindsay tried to get her to touch the water with her feet. She did like the ice-cream though.

On the way home we stopped off in Northleach and looked at the old wool-church there. Unfortunately the pub didn't serve any food yet, so we had to get Yana home quickly on the nibbles we still had left over from lunch.

Visiting friends and family in Germany

2009-06-03T15:03:00.006+02:00

In Mid-May we packed up our car and drove over to Germany to visit our friends and family. It was a long drive, but it was worth it.

Our first stop was Munich, where we stayed with a couple of different friends and met up with as many people as we could. It was like piecing together a puzzle, trying to fit so many people into the four days. We were really lucky with the weather and managed to experience our first glimpse of summer. Aside from catching up with friends, we managed to enjoy a couple of beer gardens and visited a wildlife park with a big adventure playground. Yana enjoyed playing with all her little friends.

On our way to Kehlbach, where Kerstin's family lives, we stopped off in Wiesbaden for a night and stayed with Kerstin's grandparents. The remaining time was spent in Kehlbach, meeting up with more family and friends. We particularly enjoyed the time we spent with Kerstin's sister and her family, who had just moved to Germany from New Zealand.

A big highlight of the trip for Kerstin was her 10 year high school reunion. Kerstin spent a whole day with her old school mates playing different kinds of outdoor games, having a barbecue and a nice buffet dinner and catching up on all the news and gossip with everyone. It was great to see everyone again.

Here are some photos of our trip:

Yana playing with her friend Tim

Going for a walk with our friends Stefan, Tim and Anna (and Baby Benjamin enjoying his last few days inside Anna's belly)

Lindsay and Yana having fun on the giant swing

Pekip (Baby-group) Reunion with Babsi, Leopold, Katrin, Lisa-Marie, Kerstin and Yana

The two cousins going for a drive together

Kerstin and her sister Nina with their little toddlers...

... and with their approx. 30 week bumps.

Avebury

2009-05-26T23:17:00.004+02:00

Hier are some photos of our trip to Avebury, which is the largest pre-historic stone circle in the world and only half an hour away from us. It is somewhat more informal than Stonehenge, with no entry fee and houses and roads in the middle of it. Yana managed to walk most of the way around the circle by herself and enjoyed climbing up and down the hills.

The stone circle in Avebury:

Yana carrying our bag for us:

Yana and Lindsay chilling out in the sun:

Death

2009-04-28T15:16:00.015+02:00

Its one of those things that you think only happens to other people and will never happen to you......... Getting older. Otherwise known as 'the end of life as you know it'. Its taken me more than a month to build up the courage to write about it.

I had an early indication that something nasty was going to happen when I broke my achilles back in February, but I never thought I would turn 30!

Anyway, its happened now, and to help console me my lovely wife secretly organised an early funeral where friends and family gathered to bid farewell to my younger days (well friends anyway). Nobody seemed to realise the deep meaningfullness of what had happened as they all seemed intent on having fun.

The jousting competition was fiercly fought

Yana was crowned champion and rode away on her prize steed.

Me going "I can't even count that high, how am I supposed to blow them out?!" (Cake baked by forementioned lovely wife)

A pack of thugs picking on a poor elderly cripple (if anyone recognises someone here, could they please contact the nearest police station - 6 Shillings and thrupence will be offered for information leading to arrest)

The funeral tour as we went around (and around and around) the world famous magic roundabout

Anyway, I've survived for more than a month in the dreaded 30's now, and in fact I am more mobile than when I turned 30, so it can't be all bad. Further evidence can be seen in that I can still use a computer and program a VCR - I'm almost beginning to believe that its all been a big lie!

Many thanks to everyone for turning up to commiserate. It was a lot of fun and given that some people hadn't seen each other for 6-7 years it was a great excuse to get together!

Easter Weekend

2009-04-15T13:36:00.008+02:00

For Easter our friends Nick and Clare, who just recently moved to London, came to visit us. We had initially planned to go to Wales, but because we left it a bit late, all the camping grounds were booked out. England is not New Zealand, where you can just head off at short notice and still expect to find plenty of accommodation. Instead we stayed at our place and went on several day trips into the surrounding area. Here are some photos of our day trips (taken partly by us, and partly by Nick or Clare).

Day 1:
First we walked up to the Uffington white horse, which is a 110m long stylised prehistoric hill figure, cut into the grass to reveal the underlying white chalk. And then we headed into Oxford to look at its amazing buildings.

The head of the Uffington White Horse

Lindsay, Yana and Kerstin walking up the White Horse Hill

I think this is the All Souls College, in Oxford

The Radcliffe Camera (a reading room)

Hertford Bridge

Such tourists...

Day 2:
Our second day trip took us back to Lechlade, where we had been a couple of weeks prior. We had a nice picnic on the banks of the Thames river and then hired a row boat. The boat was a little hard to steer, but in the end Lindsay and Nick found an efficient method of moving forward without going in zigzags.

Clare being the oars-woman

Yana in her life-jacket after surviving the mighty boat-trip

Day 3:

Our longest day trip had us driving through the Cotswolds in the campervan. We stopped off in Bibury and had a look around. Then we stopped in Withington, where Yana had a sleep and we had a road-side picnic. We went for a walk into the four possible directions, as far as the babyphone would reach, and explored the little village. On the way home we stopped in Cirencester, looked at the church and had a drink and some chips in a local pub.

Arlington Row, a row of 17th century weavers' cottages in Bibury

Easter Sunday at the church in Bibury

A pub in Withington

Day 4:
On our last day trip we went to Bradford-on-Avon, a nice little town by the Avon river. We had a look around and ended the day with a nice meal at a pub right by the Kennet and Avon Canal.

Town bridge in Bradford-on-Avon

Lindsay, Yana, Kerstin, Clare and Nick in a park in Bradford-on-Avon

The Kennet and Avon Canal

Us enjoying our pub meal

Finally getting out and about...

2009-04-14T23:46:00.005+02:00

After what felt like winter hibernation, we have finally been getting out and about again. And in doing so, we have realised what a great area we live in (despite all the negative remarks about Swindon).

In March we had our friends Anna and Stefan from near Munich stay with us for a week. They have a little boy, Tim, who is two weeks younger than Yana. We had a great time catching up and we managed to see Stonehenge close-up, which can only be arranged by prior appointment. Unfortunately Yana got sick, so we couldn't do any more day trips. Anna, Stefan and Tim did a few trips on their own and we socialised with them in the evening, when the boiling hot, clingy Yana was asleep.

Stonehenge

Stefan playing double-carrier

Another day trip we did, towards the end of March, was to Lechlade-on-Thames. The town is almost in the Cotswolds, less than half an hour from our place. We parked on a car-park with a picnic table and had lunch while Yana slept in the campervan. Once she woke up we went for a walk along the Thames, watching the ducks, swans and river boats. We went to a nice pub, right by the side of the river and had a drink. It was a beautiful sunny day.

The pub in Lechlade

Kerstin and Yana enjoying the sunshine by the Thames

The river Thames

Daddy singing and an update on me

2009-03-08T14:02:00.010+01:00

Hi everyone,

It's me again, Yana. Hopefully I'll be able to write this entry without Mama and Daddy catching me. I want to upload this video where my Daddy sings and he would probably not approve, because he's too embarassed about it. After all, he can't even remember all the words to 'Twinkle, twinkle little star'. At least I can remember the moves.

Well, I've been pretty good lately, so Mama and Daddy say. I have finally given in and I call them by their names, although I sometimes can't decide between 'Mama' and 'Mummy' for my mum. At first they were really excited, but now they sometimes don't like it, if I repeat their names too often and in a demanding tone. I have to work on that. I can also say 'Yana', although I get confused because they sometimes call me 'Yani'. But I can say that too.

I got this little buggy a while ago and I love pushing Bean-Bear around in it (or any other toy really). When we go for a walk outside I'm allowed to take Bean-Bear in the buggy and he gets one of my jackets. Mama gets a bit cross when I try to abandon Bean-Bear, so I've stopped that and I push him all the way now. I'm scared of not being allowed to take him out anymore.

I don't really like some of the food they try to feed me, like chunky bits of vegetable or bread. Bread is a nice thing really, but only when it's soaked in a soup or as a carrying device for nice things like cheese or ham. My favourite things are yoghurt, cheese, grapes, kiwi-fruit and raisins. I can eat them any time, any day, whether hungry or not.

Mama and I have started to go to 'Tumble Tots', where I can climb and balance on things, there are lots of other children and I get a sticker at the end, which I can stick on my sticker chart on the fridge. I really like it there, apart from the singing, which is a bit boring and almost puts me to sleep sometimes.

I'm not sure if Mama and Daddy have told you, but if not then I will - I'm going to get a little brother or sister for my birthday (well, hopefully after my birthday, since that's my day). I'm not quite sure what that means. I hope it means that I get an older sibling. Little babies are cute, but they get a bit boring after a while. I prefer older children who do cool things. I love watching them.

Squash - The new Rugby

2009-03-06T22:42:00.003+01:00

Last weekend I played in a squash tournament organised by the squash league I've joined here. Because I joined relatively recently, they gave me a rather generous handicap, which meant I was able to get through to the final with the first game actually being the hardest - because the other guy was also new, and had also received a pretty generous handicap.

Anyway, about 3 points into the final I went for the ball, then suddenly felt like someone wacked me on the ankle and I fell over - it was my left Achilles tendon rupturing...

I'm booked in for surgery tomorrow morning - which is better than the alternative of just having it in plaster for 7 weeks - which fixes it, but has a re-rupture rate of between 15-40%. Surgery has about a 5% re-rupture rate.

I'll probably post some nice photo of my (little) shark bite in a few days time.

Snowy Swindon and a Trip to Kehlbach

2009-02-11T21:20:00.005+01:00

January 2009 started and ended snowy here in Swindon. It snowed during the night of Kerstin's birthday and the small layer of snow remained for the next two days. At the end of January there was a lot more snow, causing a traffic chaos for the unprepared Brits. Kerstin and Yana missed the majority of the snow (and chaos), because they were in Kehlbach visiting friends and family. Lindsay, however, biked to work over bumpy icey snow managing to beat the traffic on the road next to him.

Our snowy street

Our campervan, which has now got a nice protective cover

Yana's first steps on snow

Kerstin and Yana enjoyed their two weeks holiday in Kehlbach. They caught up with lots of friends and family and relaxed at Kerstin's parents' house. Yana felt at home immediately and especially loved hanging out with her uncle Kevin, who's currently holding the 'Favourite Uncle' title.

Yana is turning into quite the little artist

Yana and Teddy riding on Kevin's former horse

Yana feeding Kevin

Four generations of women: Yana, her mum, her grandma and her great-grandma

Yana all rolled up after her bath

The three of us have settled back into life in Swindon. We are enjoying the luxury of finally having a car again and we are hoping to get the remaining organisational stuff sorted out soon, so that we can start heading away on trips again at the weekends.

Yana is growing up quickly. She is starting to say more and more sounds, although a lot of them don't resemble recognisable words yet (e.g. rüdüdüt, dovedovedove, govegovegove). She can feed herself now and she sometimes even feeds us (see this is how we get rewarded for the long hard work). Yana is happy and cheerful, warms up quickly to new people, loves watching other kids and is more and more fun to have around.

Settling into Swindon

2008-12-23T22:24:00.005+01:00

Since it's not possible to continue travelling forever, we had to end our trip somewhere, move into a fixed abode and start working again (well, Lindsay at least).

We arrived in Swindon after our summer holiday in New Zealand and it was quite a shock at first - cold, drizzly, and dark just after 4pm. But we didn't have time to get depressed. We started looking for a place to live immediately and after only a week, we moved into a four bedroom house with a little backyard in a new residential area in the North of Swindon. We were lucky and we were able to negotiate for all whiteware to be included and the rent to be reduced.

We moved in before the fridge, so we had to create a fridge in our backyard, which wasn't hard considering the low temperatures. We took everything of use out of the campervan, including kitchenware, fold-up table and chairs, matress and cushions. Unfortunately these items have been our only pieces of furniture since then and because of our container from Germany being delayed, they will remain so until after christmas. The only thing we have bought is a bed and after we made the order, we realised how silly our bedroom is designed. It is too narrow for the kingsize bed with bedside tables next to it and it only has one short wall with no window or door on it. Oh well, we still managed to fit the bed in. The bedroom (aside form the kitchen) is now the most homely place in our house. Our lounge is a bit dull with cushions on the floor, no TV and just Yana's toys as entertainment.

Lindsay started work on December 1st. He is back at Allied Telesis working in a pre-Sales-Support role now. He enjoys being able to speak to colleagues and customers in English again and he has been getting fit on his 6km bike-rides to and from work every day.

Kerstin has been trying to organise the house and find mother-toddler groups in the area to get to know other people. There is a German mother-toddler group in Swindon, which Kerstin and Yana have been to twice now. The mothers are mostly Germans, some come from other countries and have lived in Germany for a while. The children range in age from about 3 weeks to about 2 1/2 and Yana fits in really well.

Yana is almost 17 months now and turning into a cute little girl. She can walk all the way to the playground and back (with lots of little detours ;-)), she can say "Mama", "da" and "dog" and she can understand a lot. She does lots of cute (and weird) little things like: makes bromm bromm noises when she sees a car, walks around with her doll in her jersey top(!?), sit in pots, climbs into cupboards (yesterday she even got completely onto the top shelf somehow), stand in or on pots (depending on which way they are turned), sit down with a blanket on her knees and read a book, etc. Eating is also fun, but not so much for her Mama, who has to have a lot of patience and do a lot of cleaning afterwards.

Since our house is so unhomely, we are not really in a christmas mood this year. However, we had a nice pre-Christmas lunch last Sunday and we are going to spend christmas with friends in Bath, which should be great. After christmas we will have our first visitors - Kerstin's family. Hopefully they won't have to sit on the floor for too long...

Holiday in New Zealand

2008-11-26T22:13:00.012+01:00

To bring our Europe trip to a glorious end, we decided to go back to New Zealand for a five-week holiday before settling down into the English winter.

The flight from Europe to New Zealand is tedious at the best of times, but having a 15 month old baby and being 10 hours delayed makes it even worse. To be fair, Yana was surprisingly good on the flight. We didn't have any of the moments where we wanted to disappear into our seats that we had feared.

Most of our time in New Zealand we spent with my sister Nina, her husband Phil and their 11 month old son Oscar. Yana really liked Oscar. She got excited when she saw him, followed him around, and stroked his head. Towards the end she was getting a little rougher, probably because she didn't like him taking toys away from her.

We had a really nice time in New Zealand. The weather was a bit unpredictable for the first couple of weeks, but then it got really nice and summery. We caught up with lots of friends, spent a week with Lindsay's mum in Timaru, went for a nice walk on the bridle path with Lindsay's dad, and had fun and hot day at the races. Lindsay went to Nelson for a boys weekend and Kerstin did nice trips with Nina to Sumner and Lyttleton.

The highlight of our holiday was a weekend in a holiday house in Wainui, Banks Peninsula, with a group of friends. The holiday house we were staying at was very nice, with a really well designed garden with lots of flowers, a deck and an amazing view - all really well shelted from any wind. We did lots of chatting, eating, chilling out, and kite flying. We had a great time and to round the weekend up we went to French Farm for a nice lunch.

Update on Yana...

2008-10-09T14:34:00.004+02:00

I just had a look on my parents' blog and realised that there have been hardly any photos of me recently. That needs to be remedied...

This photo shows me climbing up a slide. I love climbing up things and sliding is heaps of fun too. For a while climbing was all that I was interested in, but recently I have started doing a few steps on my own. It's not too bad, but I still need to be encouraged by my parents and prefer crawling.

This is dad and me in a playground in Llanca. By the way, I decided to be nicer to Mama and Daddy now. I go up to them and give them hugs and kisses, and I stroke or pat them (although that can sometimes still be a little rough).

This is me eating. I love eating. I eat pretty much everything and lots of it.

This is me playing in my mirror-room (well, bathroom). I love playing in there, because there are three other me's that laugh back at the real me.

North of Spain

2008-10-09T14:20:00.004+02:00

After a day of duty-free shopping in Andorra, we headed back to Spain. We had a very scenic drive through the pyrenees and stayed in some really nice spots. The best spot was right by a lake. Lindsay went for a bike ride and a swim, while Kerstin did some painting.

The lake we stayed at.

We never got around to doing a proper hike, but we did a walk to an old castle ruin in the small town of Bonabarre. On the castle grounds it was the first time that Yana stood up by herself and did a few steps. Previously she had just done a few steps out of the standing position when we called her to us.

The castle in Bonabarre.

We visited Pamplona, where the Encierro (running with the bulls) is held. Unfortunately it was raining for most of the time and we managed to get there during the siesta time (between 2pm and 5pm) when all the shops are closed and the streets are completely isolated. You could see the potential of the town, but couldn't be bothered waiting around to experience it.

The landscape in the pyrenees.

Our last stop in Spain was Bilbao. On the first day we managed to park right outside a shopping mall and get internet. Lindsay was surfing the web, while Kerstin did some clothes shopping. The next day Kerstin got to spend most of the day in the Guggenheim Museum, while Lindsay walked the streets of Bilbao with Yana. The Guggenheim Museum consists of an amazing building out of steel and glass that looks like a huge sculpture and is integrated really well into the surrounding area. Inside there are really interesting exhibitions, including a large one by Juan Munoz, and you can find out all the details via an audio guide.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

After a 30 hour ferry-ride from Bilbao to Portsmouth, we have now arrived in England and our trip around Europe is coming to an end. The ferry-ride went very smoothly, we just felt a little queezy at the beginning when we were sitting in our tiny room with no window and the boat was rocking back and forth. Later on it got less bumpy and we had a good nights' sleep. The boat was very luxurious with lots of restaurants, bars and pubs. Kerstin saw the film 'Mamma Mia' in the boat's cinema and Lindsay watched a boring, badly done video presentation on the whales and dolphins that had been spotted on the way over (he saw a whale in real life shortly after leaving Bilbao).

Bilbao.

Now we are looking around our future home - Swindon - and we are getting prepared for our next big trip to New Zealand in a week's time.

Spain

2008-09-28T21:10:00.010+02:00

Since we have now reached our fifth country - Andorra - it's time to write about Spain...

We left a grey and windy France and it felt like the weather improved as soon as we crossed the border to Spain. We spent about three days in a place called Llanca, which had a nice beach/yacht-harbour, two great playgrounds for Yana and a cheap, but completely acceptable, camping ground. The weather was great during our stay. We got to do a bit of sun-bathing, Lindsay went for a 4 hour run/tramp while Kerstin went to the beach with Yana and Kerstin went for a shorter run the next day.

The coast by Llanca

The beach/yacht-harbour of Llanca

Our next stop was Girona, a city with a nice colourful row of houses along the river, an impressive cathedral, cute narrow streets, but a slightly dodgy looking carpark that we were glad to leave behind.

Girona's colourful houses

The next few days we spent in a camping ground just north of Barcelona, near a town called Mataro. From there we took the train into Barcelona for two days. In Barcelona we bought a two-day tourist bus pass, which was a great way to see the city and learn about all the sights. We were able to hop on and off the bus as many times as we wanted. On the first day, a slightly rainy day unfortunately, we did the Southern route that took us to the Olympic stadium and the harbour. And on the second day, a nice and sunny day, we did the Northern route that took us to a couple of creative houses, the impressive Sagrada Familia and the colourful Park Güell - all designed by Gaudi.

The Sagrada Familia from the outside...

...and from the inside

Inside Park Güell - it was hard to get this photo without anyone posing in it.

More from Park Güell - again very hard to not get anyone in the ph

A very very unique looking building... anyone else get cravings for gherkins???

The first part of our drive to Andorra was not very exciting. Last night, however, we stayed in a really cool spot by a gorge here in the pyrenees and the drive today was really spectacular as well. After we've done some duty-free shopping tomorrow, we will try to experience the pyrenees from a hiker's perspective.

Provence etc

2008-09-19T19:13:00.007+02:00

Well this update is a little slow as usual. We have travelled around a fair bit since the last entry.

After reluctantly leaving Annecy, we went to a camping ground in Jonquieres near Orange. While there, we thought Yana was going to make the jump and finally start walking because she took a few shuffling steps, but since then she has seemed rather disinclined to try it again. However she still loves pushing the pram around, and is getting more skilled at getting unstuck

when she bumps into something. We are a little worried that she might just skip walking and just start driving everywhere. Fortunately she can't reach both the pedals and the steering wheel yet.

One interesting thing we have seen a lot in Provence, is vineyards where the vines are not tied to wires, but left to grow like little trees. We can assure you that they taste the same though (its not stealing when you're doing scientific experiments (e.g. do they taste good)).

Next we went to Carpentras to go to a farmers market (very friendly little town), and managed to take a wrong turn which took us down a maze of tiny little streets that we were seriously worried about needing to back out of with our campervan... fortunately we managed to find our way back out without knocking any bits off the campervan!

Next we went to Avignon, which while ok, was quite shady (lots of strange homeless people) and also a little boring - apart from the Pont d'Avignon (Avignon Bridge, which cost €4.50 just to walk onto! - we didn't bother...) and the Palais des Papes (old Papal palace), there wasn't much else to see - just living from its past.

€4.50 just to walk on half a bridge - the cheek of the french aye...

After Avignon we went to see Pont du Gard, an amazing old Aquaduct built by the romans in about 19BC and still in very good nick. The scale of it is pretty amazing and to think that the bridge was only one small part of the total Aquaduct going through hilly countryside (50 something kms)... We found a nice place to park only a couple of kms from the bridge and therefore managed to get there at about 8am before anybody else, and got some nice piccies.

Pont du Gard - those Romans sure knew how to build!

Big Yana against one of the 'little' arches on the top tier to get an idea of the size.

After Pont du Gard we went to Arles, where van Gogh spent quite a bit of time (including several hundred paintings and chopping off his ear).
Missing ear and all...

There happened to be a festival on with bull fighting (and running) etc and with its old roman amphitheatre etc it was a really nice place. We also got to experience the famous Mistral wind wistling down the Rhone valley - rocked us to sleep in the campervan ;-)

We are now on the Mediterranean coast with nice summery conditions. On Sunday we stopped off near Montpellier on a nice beach where I (and Yana) got to swim in the Mediterranean sea for the first time (I only dipped my toes in when we were in Rome a few years ago). We are planning on staying on various beaches along the coast as long as the weather holds out (is due to rain on Thursday) and then heading towards Spain/Pyrenees mountains.

As this was written on Monday and it is now Friday, it is a little out of date - we have now reached Spain - a little earlier than expected due to the weather packing it in on Wednesday instead... but that will all have to wait until the next post ;)

Lac d'Annecy

2008-09-11T16:11:00.002+02:00

We have moved on to France now and we have spent four very nice days in the area around Lac d'Annecy (Lake Annecy). Annecy itself is a beautiful little town with canals, narrow alleyways, bridges with flowers on them, lots of playgrounds and a park right by the lake. An amazing two-way cycle 'road' runs along the entire western shore of the lake (and carries on south for another 10kms or so) and there are mountains with sheer rock faces towering over the eastern shore. There are also giant meringues to be sampled. It's a very nice area.

The first night we spent on a carpark together with lots of other campervans, despite a sign saying no camping. We couldn't quite understand the text of the sign, but were pretty sure camping wasn't allowed given the campervan picture with a cross through it. However, we thought that the town must tolerate campervans, otherwise there wouldn't be 15 or so campervans parked there. The carpark was right by the lake. In the morning I went for a run along the lake. For the rest of the day Lindsay went for a bike ride, while Yana and I explored the centre of the town. We did some sightseeing and went to two different playgounds. Afterwards we relaxed in the park.

The next couple of nights we spent in a legitimate parking spot, which wasn't as close to the lake though. Because the second day was rainy, we went out for lunch and then spent the rest of the day in an indoor swimming pool. Yana loved playing around in the water and Lindsay and I took turns swimming lengths. Lindsay had to buy some speedos from a vending machine, because shorts weren't allowed.

On the Sunday we went for a walk on the eastern side of the lake. We followed the markers to a mountain, but even though we were climbing up at a continuous rate, we were struggling to get a view. We knew there was an amazing view, but it was covered by all the trees. Finally we found a spot, from which we could see down to the lake. we didn't make it to the top of the mountain though, as we had no idea how long it would have taken us.

Because we liked Annecy so much, we decided to spend another day there, exploring the town centre and relaxing by the lake. We biked into town along the lake from where we were staying and then spent the day in town. It was beautiful and sunny, and we were almost tempted to stay on for another day.

Now we are on our way to the Provence, eager to find out what kinds of places we will discover here.

Beautiful Switzerland

2008-09-02T22:59:00.007+02:00

So after a long pause, I check our blog again to see that Yana has cheekily hacked my
password and added herself as an admin on the blog... That earned her a month computer ban.

In other news, we are now (and have been for the last 4 days) by Lake Geneva in Switzerland where we have found a rather pleasant campingground with a beach nearby and the neccesities of modern living - power and internet access ;-)Kerstin has been using this to make some serious progress on her Information Design assignment while Lindsay and Yana have been making sure nobody causes any problems on the beach.

Before coming here, we spent our time in the following way:

We visited our friends Julian and Jana in Freiburg and organised a survey that was testing the correlation between price and taste of 10 different pinot noir wines. Julian invited some work mates of his and we all sampled the wines (without knowing which was being tasted)that ranged from €1,50 to €16. There was a slightly positive correlation between taste and price, but some people had pretty random results. Most of us realised that the wines started tasting better, the more we had.

We did several walks in the Berner Oberland (or Jungfrau) region of Switzerland, making use of the incredibly nice, sunny weather. We stayed a couple of nights in Interlaken and a couple of nights in a small place in the Lauterbrunnen valley, called Stechelberg. Our walks took us from Stechelberg to Lauterbrunnen, from Stechelberg to Gimmelwald and Mürren, and from Grindelwald up the hill to no particular destination. Yana was such a great companion, either sleeping or being a quiet little angel in the backpack. We did make her do her share too though: she had to crawl parts of the way, especially up steps, which she loves to do (crawl, because she still can't be bothered walking).

On our way to lake Geneva we found two less touristy, but still really nice places: Saanen and Leysin. In Saanen we stopped off for a day to do a bike-ride to the neighbouring town of Gstaad and in Leysin we spent two nights on the carpark of an sports complex. From Leysin we did a walk up to a mountain called Berneuse and took the cable car down. It was quite a long way, rather steep and hot, but we had amazing views and Yana behaved really well again.

More from Yana

2008-08-25T09:25:00.005+02:00

Because my parents have been too slack to write an entry recently, I thought I should write another one. I'm now almost 13 months old and I have the feeling that my parents understand me a little better. They still don't let me get my way enough, but they do get my point in a lot more cases. For example, when I make chewing noises, they know I want their food. I think they are a lot more careful what they eat around me now, because they know they have to share their food with me. Even though I only have six teeth I can chew pretty well.

I'm not too keen on walking by myself yet. After all, I get everywhere I want to by crawling and it's a lot more fun to climb than to walk anyway. I can get up and down stairs, low couches and sometimes even ladders. I can shake my head, put caps on bottles and eat from a fork, when Mama puts something on it for me. Spoons don't really work for me, because the food always falls off them.

I better go, Mama and Daddy want to go tramping with me here in Switzerland, where we are staying at the moment.

Here are some more photos of me...

Me and my friend Tim:

Me at the swimming pool/lake:

Me in one of my crazy sleeping positions:

Me climbing around one of the many playgrounds we have found:

Next time I might have the results of the test I'm doing on Mum and Dad - I'm sleeping till 7:30am at the moment to see what they are like when they aren't sleep deprived ;-)

Yana turns 1...

2008-08-05T20:58:00.005+02:00

Since I'm a whole year old now, I decided it's time to contribute to my parents' blog. I could hold a grudge against them, because they haven't renamed the blog to 3Germans, but I'm pretty tolerant and I'll let them get away with it.

For those of you, who don't know me yet...
My name is Yana Isabel Sandford. I was born on the 27.07.07 in Munich. I'm about 0.75m tall and I weigh 9.4kg. I have short dark blond hair and bright blue eyes. I can say 'da' (German for 'there') and point at things, 'Nein nein nein' (German for 'No no no'), 'dada' (for 'Daddy', at least that's what he thinks), occasionally 'Mama' and lots of other sounds that only I can understand. I like speedcrawling, climbing up onto things (couches, slides, ladders, stairs, etc.), doing a handstand, eating what Mama and Daddy are eating (especially cheese), looking at and chewing on books, grinning and most of all exploring.

I had two birthday parties recently: one on my actual birthday and one a week later. The first celebration was with my parents, grandma, uncle, greatgrandma, greataunties and greatuncles in a cafe along the Rhein. They ate cake and drank coffee, while I had to sit on someones lap and behave. Fortunately I got to play in a sandpit for a little while. The second celebration was more to my taste: lots of people (including some my age) sitting together in the Englische Garten in Munich having a picnic, sunny weather, food I got to taste, space to move around and toys to play with.

That's it from me for now. Until next time...

Yana xxx

Here are a few pictures of me...

Several hundred kilometres further…

2008-07-25T22:39:00.006+02:00

We have travelled several hundred kilometres further through Germany and have visited the following places:

Königslutter
Königslutter is a cute town near Braunschweig. We found it by chance, when we were looking for a place to stay the night. It had free campervan facilities and parking spots. We went for a walk through the town, saw the big cathedral, walked along a track to the spring of the river Lutter and strolled through the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, which were beautifully landscaped. Yana was spending most of the time sleeping in her backpack. In the evening Lindsay and I went out for a glass of wine to a café down the road (in reach of our babyphone).

Walking to the Spring

Near Magdeburg
We stopped off for a day in a tiny place near Magdeburg. We went for a bike ride along the Elbe River and discovered the longest canal bridge in the world. Here the Mittellandkanal (a canal) is directed over the Elbe River. After Yana played on the Elbe Beach for a little while, she got tired and I looked after her, while Lindsay biked into Magdeburg.

A bridge for water over a river... strange but true

Berlin
We stayed two nights in Berlin’s suburb Köpenick. On the first day we walked into the old town of Köpenick and looked at its Rathaus (council building) and Schloss (mansion). On the second day we took the train into the central city and did a sightseeing tour. We walked along the longest remaining stretch of the Berlin wall, which is now called the East Side Gallery. Artists from all over the world have painted graffiti on the Eastern side of the wall, something that was only tolerated in the West during GDR times. We visited Alexanderplatz and Potzdamer Platz (two squares), the Sony Centre, a Stasi-exhibition and the Brandenburger Tor. We wanted to climb onto the cupola of the Reichstag (parliament building), but it was raining at this stage and we didn’t want to join the queue that was standing in the rain.

The wall - strange to think that the madness of the wall really took place!

Compulsory photo

Lübbenau
We only stopped off for a short time in the gherkin capital of Lübbenau, which is in the Spreewald (Spree forest), south of Berlin. We did a little micro-bike-ride, because Yana doesn’t particularly like her bike seat. The town was very pretty, but it was very touristy and it had a couple of very particular park wardens. Despite making three parking spots unusable, they (two of them, separately) told us to park in the middle of our parking spot rather than across two.

Dresden
Dresden was the place I had mostly looked forward to visiting. We arrived around 5pm and parked directly by the Elbe River, with a great view of the major sights on the other side. We had a picnic on the bank of the river. Later I went for a run along the river and when Yana was in bed, Lindsay and I went to the beer garden next door. It was a great spot.
The next day we did a sightseeing tour, which included the Hofkirche (church), Semper Oper (opera building), Residenz and Zwinger from the outside and the newly rebuilt Frauenkirche (church) from the inside. We drove to the suburb of Loschwitz, where we stayed the night.
The next day I had the morning to myself, while Lindsay looked after Yana. I biked over the “Blue wonder" (painted green, but turned blue by itself) bridge and along the Elbe back to the central city of Dresden. I saw lots of nice old villas and three huge mansions along the way. I went to the Neustadt (new town), which is not actually very new. I bought something to eat in the Markthalle, which is an old market hall that has been rebuilt into a mall, I checked my emails and then I went to the Kunsthofpassage. The Kunsthofpassage is a network of alleyways and themed courtyards with little art shops and cafes.

Kunsthofpassage

A little picnic

The Zwinger courtyard - all the art galleries are in the surrounding buildings - which Lindsay was happy to avoid...

The rebuilt Frauenkirche (Church of our lady)

Yana telling Lindsay which places she wanted to visit

Sächsische Schweiz
South of Dresden there is an area called Sächsische Schweiz, with impressive sandstone rock formations and good tramping tracks. We stayed in a small town called Gohrisch for a couple of nights and did a day tramp to the fortress of Königstein, which is set up high on a rock plateau. The next day we did another short walk and afterwards Lindsay biked 30km along the Elbe into Dresden.
The third night we spent on a carpark by the famous Bastei rock formation. In the morning we took turns biking to it and having a look around. Lindsay went quite early and was almost by himself. When I went, the hordes of tourists had already arrived. It was still very much worth it though. The rocks tower 300m above the Elbe river and provide awesome views into the valley. The lookout for the famous bridge was along a pretty muddy track, which Lindsay and I didn’t shy away from using, like a lot of the tourists in their sparkling clean sneakers.

The famous Bastei outlook

Now we are on our way to Thüringen and then on to my parents’ place to celebrate Yanas first birthday.

We’re on our way…

2008-07-14T19:47:00.002+02:00

Several factors (such as a new job opportunity, insufficient space in our one-bedroom apartment, the wish to move on, the dream of a long trip around Europe, Yana’s current age, only having one child, etc) have come together and lead us to pack up our belongings and head off on a big trip around Europe. Currently we are travelling around Germany, somewhat as a trial-run. In August and September we will hopefully move on to Switzerland, France, Spain and finally to Britain.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting inside our campervan on a campervan-carpark on the outskirts of Hanover. Yana is sound asleep in her bed and Lindsay is a good boy, doing the dishes. This is our trip log so far:

After a couple of days in Munich doing organizational tasks, we headed off to Nürnberg, where we stayed with our friend Silke for a night. It was a very hot day and we biked into the city centre to have an ice cream. Yana enjoyed her first bike ride ever. The following days were spent in my childhood home-region visiting friends and family. Our night in Cologne turned into a very late one. We sat outside our campervan together with a middle-aged Irish couple, who was very hospitable and friendly. They kept topping up our whisky and brandy glasses without even asking us and we felt obliged to empty them. At around 2am we managed to escape into bed. Of course Yana was oblivious of the fact that we had had such a late night and cheerfully woke us up at 7am as usual. After a day of running errands in Düsseldorf, we started making our way over towards Berlin. Our first stop-over on this long journey is Hanover. When we arrived this afternoon, we still had enough time to go for a bike ride along the Mittellandkanal (a canal).

Yana is enjoying the fact that we are both there for her at the moment. We have been trying to keep the amount of driving down and keep a regular routine for her feeding and sleeping times, to make it easier on her. She is very cheerful and chatty at the moment, managed to get her fifth and sixth teeth without any problems and stood freely for about 5 seconds today for the first time.

Tomorrow we will have to find an Internet café so that we can post this blog entry. Check out a few photos of our trip so far and tune in again soon, when we continue our trip report…

A few piccies so far...

Yana enjoying swinging herself upside down under the campervan table :-)

Yana reading while we drive

Yana doesn't really enjoy our bike rides much, but she did enjoy playing in the sand on the bank of the Elbe river.

Hanging out with Dad in Königslutter am Elm (small town we visited for a night)

Yana loves swings...

Despite objecting to our dragging her on bikerides, she soon cheers up when we stop!

A week in the Alps

2008-06-18T21:18:00.007+02:00

Last week I abandoned Kerstin and Yana and headed into the mountains for a weeks climbing. Organised during a drunken gathering about a year ago, the moment had finally arrived and we (three kiwis and a dutchy) were about to try and climb Mont Blanc (4808m), the highest mountain in Europe.

Everyone flew down to Munich (From Edinburgh, London and Lilystadt (Holland)) and in the campervan we did it in fine road-trip style to Chamonix via various places in Switzerland.

I have just received this picture in the post from the Swiss police taken from a security camera at a building site.

Susten pass - our first bit of tramping. After camping Friday night near the German/austrian border, we headed to Susten pass in Switzerland as a scenic way of travelling to the famous Jungfrau, Monch and Eiger mountains near Interlaken. Unfortuantely the road was closed, but we ignored that and drove up anyway to do some tramping. You can see one of the slips in the photo. We later found out why they hadn't bothered clearing it and reopening the road, when a second one came down later that day. We camped at 1900m and did a walk up to nearly 3000m (trying to aclimatise a little for the climbing ahead).

Nearing the top, we had a nice view of a neighbouring mountain and the slackers who took the lift to the top of it...

Because many of the huts in the Jungfrau region were still closed, we just did a few day walks in the area.

To get to Chamonix we blindly followed our Tomtom which decided the Kandersteg-Goppenstein train was the quickest way there. Fortunately it only cost CH20, so was actually a nice relaxing way to travel.

We had been carefully following the weather forecast in the Chamonix region the whole time (which changed every 5 minutes), and in the end we decided to head up and try our luck - we would be able to get weather updates at the huts. Because it was still quite early in the season, the train and gondola were closed, which meant I was able to persuade the others that we should do it like real men. On Wednesday, we parked in Les Houches (1100m) and walked up to the first hut - Tete Rousse (3200m).

At Tete Rousse we discovered that the Gouter hut (3817m), while not officially open (unlike what the info center had said), would allow people to stay anyway (unlike what the guide center had said), so we headed up the 600m so summit day would be easier and we could further acclimatise. Slightly higher than mt Cook in NZ, this is where we really started to notice the altitude - most of us had cracking headaches for most of the day. According to the GPS unit we had, air pressure was just over 60% that at sea level (at 4000m).

On arrival at the Gouter hut we had plenty of time so went for a walk up to just over 4000m towards Mont Blanc because we knew we would be doing the first section in darkness. This photo is looking east to Chamonix (valley) and Aiguille du Midi etc (mountains on right).

The Friday morning forecast was looking good, so we woke up at 2am ready to make a summit attempt, but unfortuately it was snowing and blowing, so after another false start at 4am, we finally got up at 5am and although we had given up on the peak, went for another walk. This photo on sunrise is roughly the same as the previous. We turned back on spotting the first cravasse and therefore never saw the peak (we had been planning to follow in everyone else's footsteps, and had therefore not carried a rope up). We then walked the 3000m back down to the campervan.

On Saturday morning we dropped Dan off and started on the long drive back to Munich. We stayed Saturday night in Rorschach, Switzerland right beside Bodensee/Lake Constance and hired a boat on the Sunday morning for a few hours before continuing on the way home.

A Danube-themed trip

2008-05-25T21:23:00.008+02:00

Over the long pentecost-weekend we took our campervan for a ride to the Southwest of Germany.

Firstly, we visited a place Lindsay had been dying to see for months - the area, where the Danube river dissappears completely into the ground on around 150 days of the year. Unfortunately we chose one of the remaining 215 days, but we spotted a few places, where the water was being whirled into the ground. And we managed to cross the giant Danube river on foot - with Yana!

Secondly, we went for a 3 hour tramp through the Lotenbach and Wutach gorges. The landscape was beautiful and the track was great. The only problems were (1) too many people on the track, causing a long row of people walking in a single file in some places; (2) too many people in the restaurant midway, causing us to wait for over an hour and never actually get our food; and (3) feeling really hungry and exhausted because we didn't get the food we had relied on in the restaurant.

Thirdly, we went to the city of Donaueschingen, where the Danube river (German: Donau) claims to have its source. Because the river is formed from two smaller rivers joining, however, the true source could also be somewhere else... And there is a bit of a rivalry going on between Donaueschingen and another city over who owns the true source of the Danube. We visited the source of the Danube, the Donau Tempel, went for a nice walk through the park, ate an ice cream and walked back through the city centre.

Fourthly, we visited the city Lindau, which is located on an island in lake Constance (German: Bodensee). We had been there before, which made Kerstin not want to go at first. But then she had to admit that it was a great idea to spend a nice sunny day in this pretty city.

Attempting a "Wank"

2008-05-25T20:56:00.007+02:00

The day Yana turned 9 months we decided that she is old enough and that her crawling speed is good enough to attempt her first mountain. Because we thought the name was funny, we chose the "Wank" near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the South of Bavaria. As you can see in the photos, Yana was going pretty well. We did have to wait for her occasionally, she did have to take a few rests on the benches and we did only manage to get half-way up, but we don't want to be too hard on her on her first attempt of a mountain. And perhaps she didn't approve of the name. The Bavarian flag flying in the warm breeze marked the hut, where we took a bite to eat.

April Update

2008-04-21T21:39:00.008+02:00

The month of April has been rushing past with quite a lot of things happening, but little time to write about it - A good reason to give you all a brief update and a few more photos of our little sunshine.

The weather has been very moody. One day it is back down to almost snowy temperatures and the next it is a sunny 18 degrees. One day it is pouring down with rain and the next it is beautiful and clear.

Kerstin is now half-way through the first semester of her Technical Communication course. She is enjoying it a lot, but found the last couple of weeks rather stressful. In order to finish her assignment she had to work until 2am one night. Of course Yana wasn't very understanding and still demanded her 3am feed and Kerstin's full attention at 7:30am.

In mid-April, we had the appartment full of kiwis. Our friends Mark, Sylvia, Jo and Steve stayed with us (one couple on our couch and one in our campervan). It was great to see them again and spend a long weekend together, visiting beer gardens and eating yummy food. On the Saturday night we all went to our friends' Claudia and Jonno's wedding, where we met up with more kiwi friends - Julian and Jana.

Yana loved having so many people around to play with. She has developed immensely over the last few weeks: Her crawling speed is increasing by the day, she is now not only pulling herself up onto her knees, but also onto her feet and she has got two little teeth in her lower jaw.

Last weekend we went to a lake in the North of Munich and had a picnic with our friends Michael and Carmen. Yana was able to crawl around in the grass, which she enjoyed immensely. The weather was great and it made us look forward to summer...

Trip to Italy

2008-04-21T20:29:00.014+02:00

Originally our plan was to drive to Dresden and Saxony for Easter and the week after. Unfortunately though, Yana got sick the day before the Easter weekend, with a cough, fever and, as it turned out, her first tooth breaking through. Hence, we spent Easter at home feeling bored and trapped inside.

On Easter Monday Yana felt a lot better, so we decided to escape cold and miserable Germany and head over to the other side of the alps - to Italy.

The trip started off with a big portion of bad luck. After already taking longer than we had thought to get through the alps, the heater in our campervan broke. This required us to spend a night in a hotel in the dolomites, waste a beautiful sunny day shopping for an electrical heater and take even longer to get to Venice.

We finally made it to Venice on Lindsay's birthday. We loved the city, but our experience was slightly tainted by the rain and the exhaustion of having to lift Yana's pram over the hundreds of bridges. We were not aware of the fact that ALL bridges in Venice contain steps. We got a good workout though and managed to see all the touristy areas, as well as some nice quiet spots.

After leaving Venice behind, the weather got better and so did the trip itself.

Near Verona, we turned off the motorway to follow the directions to a free campervan spot and discovered a cute town called Soave. We spent a whole day there, walking through the narrow streets, along the city wall and up to the castle. It was the first time that Yana got to crawl around in the gras and play with daisys.

The last day was spent at Lake Garda, where we went for a walk along the lake and Yana played with the stones on the beach. It was 18 degrees and felt like spring had truely arrived.

On the way back home we stopped off in the campervan-friendly city of Trento, where we had a drink outside one of the street cafes and did a little sightseeing tour.

Danger!

2008-04-01T12:54:00.003+02:00

About 2 weeks ago Yana started pulling herself around on the floor, moving quickly from a limit of about 30 cm one day to across the room the next. She has now jumped to the next step and is busy causing terror and mayhem around the house ;-)

We have started working on our 'high-tide mark' around the house and we are fairly sure this will culminate in us needing to move house in the near future... All very cute though!

Our happy little girl...

2008-03-09T22:09:00.013+01:00

Yana is now seven months old and starting to really develop her own personality. She's a very happy and cheerful little girl, who enjoys squeeking (sometimes very high-pitched) and making cute 'dadada' and 'nugnug' noises. She loves eating porridge, but eats most things she's given, if they are a bit runnier. Sometimes she eats in a very civilised manner, but often she likes 'helping' and ends up in a real mess.

Lying in the pram on her back is only really something for tired moments. When Yana is awake she wants to see something and then it is a lot more fun to lie on her belly in the pram looking out (something she can do for ages) or to be carried around by Daddy.

Yana is still toothless and there are no signs of any teeth yet. Mum and Dad are hoping that they will all just silently appear in her mouth one day. (One can dream...)

Yana is not quiet determined enough to crawl yet. When you try to get her to come towards you or a particular toy and it's too far away, then she just finds something else within her reach that looks interesting and plays with that instead. Usually the little tags and zippers on things. She is reasonably mobile though, by pushing herself backwards along the floor or turning around in a circle. Mum is glad that she can still predict how long it takes Yana to get to a particular area.

Trip to Nürnberg and the Fränkische Schweiz

2008-03-09T20:56:00.012+01:00

At the end of February we were invited to our friend Silke's birthday party in Nürnberg. We decided to drive up there in our campervan and visit the Fränkische Schweiz, a nice tramping and climbing area North of Nürnberg at the same time.

The party was great. It had a Hawaian theme, there was lots of good food and there were nice people to talk to. Yana was a real angel, spending the evening in Silke's bedroom, either sleeping or lying there quietly listening to the music and laughter. When we got tired we just went outside to our campervan and had a good (but short) sleep.

Early the next morning we headed North to Pottenstein, which is one of the main tourist towns within the Fränkische Schweiz. We did a little walk around the town and up to the Pottenstein Castle, which is the oldest in the area. We went to bed really early to make up for the previous short night.

On Sunday we went to another castle, called Burg Rabenstein, from where we did a 3 hour round trip. The weather was amazing for February - about 18 degrees. Lindsay was carrying Yana on his arms, which both enjoyed thoroughly - Lindsay for the extra exercise and Yana because she was able to see a lot better than from her pram. The track was really cool, with nice views of the castle and the rocks and lots of caves to explore.

Campervan

2008-03-04T12:29:00.011+01:00

About 6 weeks ago we finally bought a campervan. We had talked about getting one for quite some time because especially with Yana it is difficult to get away on weekends - the car works of course, but is very cramped if we need to change nappies or feed her along the way and the campervan should save us a lot of accomodation costs.

We went away for a weekend trip a week ago to the Fränkische Schweiz - a very nice rock climbing/tramping area just north of Nürnberg (Nuremberg). We wanted to test that everything worked before Easter when we are planning to head to the area around Dresden for a week.

Our major sponsor "Yana" has splashed her advertising all over the place "Yana Sandford 27/July/2007" (YS2777)

Everything is hidden away when not in use - kitchen on the left and bathroom in the 'cupboard' on the right.

The girls all belted up to go.

The taxi driver.

Me blocking the view of the campervan. What you can see, is the alcove above the drivers cabin that sleeps two (the seats/table fold down to sleep a further 2 or 3). On the back we have a moped/bike carrier.

Another Trip to Kehlbach

2008-02-13T18:42:00.010+01:00

We just got back from another trip to the metropolis of Kehlbach, where my parents live and I spent about 5 years of my youth.
Lindsay was working from my parents' house and (as you can see in the photo) Yana was helping him.
I was catching up with friends and relatives and enjoyed the sunshine. It felt like spring had come and I wouldn't mind in the slightest, if the winter was over.
At the weekends and in the evenings Lindsay came along too, of course. Even though it was carneval and carneval is celebrated in a big way in the area around Kehlbach, we didn't go to any of the parades this year. We had too many people to catch up with and Lindsay and Yana had already been to the parade in Munich the week before.
On the way back, we stopped off in Nördlingen, a town, which has its center surrounded by an old city wall. We walked along the wall and enjoyed the views we got over the red roofs of the town. Yana was happy to get out of her car seat and be carried around by mummy and daddy.
Now we are back home and I'm trying to get rid of big piles of laundry, before we head off on our next trip...

Here are some more photos of Nördlingen and the last picture shows the Yanindsay-Monster:

Yana at nearly six months...

2008-01-16T12:01:00.001+01:00

Yana is now almost six months old and has changed so much since her birth. She sleeps through most nights, cries a lot less and usually for a reason that can be fixed, she is starting to get more mobile and is developing a personality. Soon we will start feeding her solids, which will mean less flexibility, but getting closer to her being able to eat at the table with us. All in all it's a real joy having her. Here are some recent photos:

dressed up for New Years Eve

hanging out with daddy

"reading" her book

her hand is still sooo small...

playing at home

„I’m dreaming of a white christmas“ - Holiday in Austria

2007-12-29T22:49:00.004+01:00

In order to have a guaranteed white Christmas, we decided to celebrate in the mountains this year. We booked ourselves into a holiday house on a farm near the village of Uttendorf in the Hohe Tauern National Park in

Austria

As always when we go on holiday with Yana, we had a lot of luggage – three suitcases (the small one for Lindsay, the medium one for Kerstin and the large one for Yana), pram with off-road tyres, nappies, nappy-changing mat, Christmas presents, decoration, food for five days (since the shops would be closed over the weekend and Christmas holidays), Christmas cookies, etc. We had to lug all these things down the lift into the basement, through four doors and down some steps into the underground garage and then stuff them into our station wagon, which we always used to think of as big (until Yana came along).

The farm we were staying on was a couple of kilometers away from the village, up on a hill which got a lot of sun. There were cows and pigs on the farm. The owners are very nice and have three children, the youngest being four months old. The other guests were all dutch people (the dutch temporarily being the second largest ethnic group in this area).

The snow wasn’t that deep, but there was enough to call it a white Christmas and cover the valley and hills on the opposite side, as well as parts of the side we were on. We had nice sunny weather every single day, with a bright blue sky and the snow glittering in the sunlight.

We spent the first day checking out the area – Uttendorf, Kaprun (where we went out for lunch) and Zell am See (where we went to a Christmas market and shared a mulled wine). In the evening we lit the last candle of our advent wreath and played one of the board games we had borrowed from the library before we left.

On Christmas eve we went for a nice walk through the snow in the morning and to the little church in Uttendorf in the afternoon. The children of the village were performing a nativity play. Yana was very good, one of the quieter children in the audience. After church we went back into our apartment and cooked a nice meal with fish. After dinner we opened our presents in the traditional German way and then played another game, while Yana went to sleep.

On Christmas day we wanted to hire a sled, but unfortunately the place we went to didn’t hire them because there wasn’t quite enough snow on the path. We went for a walk instead and then warmed ourselves up with mulled wine (Lindsay), hot chocolate (Kerstin) and milk (Yana) inside a cozy pub. When it got dark at around 4:30, we went to the lake and watched the traditional Christmas tree diving. The men and women of the water rescue team went into the freezing cold water with torches and a lit-up Christmas tree, while Christmas carols were played on trumpets and the spectators drank mulled wine. The event was completed by fireworks.

We had a nice roast chicken for lunch on Boxing Day and then headed over the mountains of the Hohe Tauern National Park into East Tyrol. The tunnel going through some of the mountains cost €10 each way, which was probably a bit steep for the few hours we spent on the other side, but at least we are aware of the costs of this route now for the future.

The 27^th of December was Yana’s 5-month-birthday. We spent most of the day in an indoor swimming pool, playing with Yana in the baby pool, taking turns swimming laps and having something to eat at the restaurant while Yana had a nap. She really enjoyed herself, loved playing in the water with us and her little plastic duck and playing with her feet while lying on her towel in the 33 degree heat. She just got a bit grumpy when we tried to shower her and then had a really long sleep while we went shopping.

Our last full day in Austria was spent going for another couple of walks, along the Zeller Lake and around the farm we were staying at. On Saturday we headed back home, in time to celebrate New Year’s eve with friends in Munich.

Pre-Christmas Holiday in Kehlbach

2007-12-17T12:52:00.000+01:00

Since Friday Yana and I are in Kehlbach, staying with my family. Lindsay came with us, but only stayed over the weekend. He went for a long walk on a track along the Rhine on Saturday together with our friend Timo, while I went for a run with my mum and my brother looked after Yana. On Sunday we had a pre-christmas dinner and afternoon tea at my parents' place together with my grandmothers, grandfather and auntie. They were all over their little great-granddaughter Yana and gave her lots of attention. She enjoyed it, but was pretty exhausted in the evening.

Yana and I are going to stay here in Kehlbach until Thursday and catch up with some friends of mine. As usual, time is far too short and I probably won't be able to see everyone I would like to.

Over christmas we are heading into the mountains in Austria and we will hopefully celebrate a nice christmas on the farm we are staying. We are picturing lots of snow, a horse-drawn sleigh-ride, a cute little church on Christmas Eve and a friendly family to stay with, who has also got a little baby. We will get back to Munich on the 29th and our plans for New Years are still in the making.

Here are some more photos - of Yana of course ;-)

Yana with her great-grandmother...

...and with her great-grandfather

Yana is a daddy's girl

Yana's new hobby is to turn herself onto her front and play until she starts complaining about not being able to turn back or move forward

Yana is having a wee nap

Winter has come...

2007-11-17T20:36:00.001+01:00

After a very nice and warm October, winter has now arrived in Munich. Everything has been coated in a thin layer of snow for the past three days and the temperature hasn't risen above 2 degrees during the day. Before the snow came we had really windy and cold weather, which didn't stop Yana and me from going outside though. We enjoy our (almost) daily strolls in the park.
Otherwise we go along to different courses or groups or go shopping. Last week we went to Babyswimming, where Yana got to play in the water and even take a dive. She loved it and didn't cry at all until afterwards, when she was really tired and exhausted.
At the weekends we enjoy daddy's company, go for walks with him along the Isar river or in the mountains or accompany him to the climbing hall, where Yana's first boyfriend Tim goes with his parents.

Yana in the snow:

Yana and Lindsay at "our" Subway Station:

Yana in the nude:

Yana smiling:

Yana and her first boyfriend Tim (who isn't quite as interested in her as she is in him):

Life with Yana

2007-10-18T21:31:00.001+02:00

Life with Yana is getting more and more fun, as she interacts more with us and learns something new almost every day...

Along the Isar-river in Munich together with Daddy.

Changing nappies on the backseat of the car.

Training the neck-muscles.

Taking a bath in the bathing-bucket.

Happy after a feed.

Oktoberfest-Visitors

2007-10-12T19:56:00.000+02:00

For some reason around this time of year, we become a hotel for many friends wanting to visit us. Coincedentally Oktoberfest (the world's biggest folks (read beer) festival) is celebrated at this time, so we always have something to show them.
First our friends Johanna and Eckhard came. Eckhard and I spent almost an entire day in one of the Oktoberfest beer tents getting drunk on 1 litre glasses (Maß') of beer, while Johanna, Yana and Kerstin headed down South to a couple of lakes (Ammersee and Starnberger See) and enjoyed the sunshine. The rest of the time we spent in Munich going for a walk in the English Gardens, visiting a beer garden and meeting up with friends of Johanna and Eckhard's, who had also come down for the Oktoberfest. In the beer garden Yana drank her first "Maß"of beer ;-)

The same day that Johanna and Eckhard left, our dutch friend Matthijn arrived. High on the list of priorities was taking Matthijn into the Alps because although he is european, his only climbing has been done in New Zealand. We innocently picked out a nice looking mountain on Google Earth in the Berchtesgadener area, and then discovered that it is the second highest mountain in Germany. We decided we'd see how it went and off we drove. We started climbing at about 10am from Au (~650m) and got to the hut just in time for lunch (~2000m - hmmm warm food and good beer half way up a mountain), before continuing toward the top. We got to about ~2400m and decided the weather was only going to get worse (was already lost in cloud and a howling gale) and so we ran back down. We then spent the rest of his visit hobbling around on aching legs.

Holidays in Kehlbach

2007-09-24T20:35:00.005+02:00

For the last week we have been on holiday in my home-village Kehlbach. We arrived on Friday and spent the weekend with my mum and brother Kevin. My mum headed off on a trip to the Tuscany and Lindsay and I stayed to help out my brother, who has broken his ankle. We also took the opportunity to meet up with family and friends and show Yana off to them.

Yana in her car seat on the way to Kehlbach.

The castle "Marksburg" on one of Lindsay's early morning missions to drop Kevin off at school.

After a lot of practicing...

...Yana now smiles at us properly...

...and copies us, when we stick out our tongue.

Family-photo in front of the castle "Burg Eltz", where we took my school-friend Ela.

Saving time

2007-09-20T15:32:00.001+02:00

Hi All,

I've noticed that a number of people check our blog regulary rather than only when we do an update and thought I should quickly explain how you can avoid wasting your time i.e. how you can know exactly when we have done an update and only check it then.

Because in the world of internet there are always a million different ways to do the same thing, I'm only going to describe one of the possible ways to do this so I can keep it as simple as possible. If you want to do some further research you are welcome to use another way (I mention a few at the bottom - yahoo for example).

Ok, so the target of today's sermon is RSS or ATOM feeds. This is a small XML file (you don't need to remember this...) that is generated automatically every time we update the blog. You can use a program to check when this file is updated and tell it to notify you when we have done an update.

Step 1:
If you don't use it already, download and install firefox from the following link:
www.firefox.com - this will redirect to the appropriate Mozilla page where you can download it (both english and german versions etc).

Step 2:
Go to our blog using firefox: http://2germans.blogspot.com

Step 3:
In the URL bar (where you normally type the address of the website you want to visit), You will see a small orange symbol on the far right hand side. If you move the mouse over it, a small popup will appear saying "subscribe to this page". Click on this symbol.

Step 4:
You will now see a page where you can choose which 'feed reader' you want to use. Please choose "Google reader" and it will take you to the login page. If you don't have an account with Google, on the sign in page click on "create an account now". Please use the simple sign up procedure to create one. For future reference this will create an email address etc that you can use, but of course you don't have to swap if you don't want to!

Step 5:
You are now half way there. If you want you can continue to visit the google reader page to see any blogs that you subscribe to, but I will show you how to add it to your google search page so you see it every time you do a search.

Step 6:
Go to your favorite google search page e.g. www.google.co.nz, or www.google.de. In the top right hand corner you will see two small links: 'iGoogle' and 'Sign in'. Please click on 'Sign in' - use the Google account you used/created for Google reader.

Step 7:
When you have signed in, also click on the 'iGoogle' link. Feel free to remove all the junk that they put there by default. For example I only have my Google reader and the local weather on mine - do whatever you want - play around, you can't break anything!

Step 8:
On the right hand side, you will see a link called "add stuff". Click on it. On the page it takes you to, type 'Google reader' into the search bar and hit the "enter" key. When it comes up with the search results, find Google reader (should be at the top) and click "add it now".

Step 9:
If you now click on "back to homepage" in the top left hand corner, you should see what we set out to create. Now whenever you go to google to do a search, you will see if any of the blogs you have subscribed to has a new entry without having to visit them individually! You can subscribe to as many blogs and other things that have RSS feeds as you like.

For the those who don't want to use google, you may like to try other options. For example the 'Sage' extension for firefox is also a good way to do it. If you use Yahoo (even though google is better ;-), you can also use Yahoo's reader - it is very similar to Google reader.

If you have any problems (no doubt I have missed a step or two...), I can probably help you out - just flick me an email.

Changing teams?

2007-09-12T12:40:00.003+02:00

We had cause for concern over the last few days, with the Rugby world cup in progress, Yana seemed set on switching teams - as of yesterday afternoon she had lived in Italy for over 8% of her life and was talking about duel citizenship etc.

Fortunately we managed to drag her back to Germany before the family split up over irreconcilable differences. What started out as a simple "I'm sick of the weather, what is the forecast on the other side of the Alps" almost ended up with Yana growing up alone in another country.

Anyway despite the problems it was a very enjoyable trip. The weather was fantastic and the only blemish was that I couldn't find anywhere to watch the NZ-Italy game on Saturday :-(

The sunset when we arrived in Mölten.

Yana pondering over whether to tell us she wants to support Italy in the game the next day.

Yana being abandoned at some random house before we changed our minds and decided to try and convert her back from the dark side.

Yana and Lindsay being friends again.

The view from near the village - that's a lot of apples in case you're wondering.

Where's the house...

We met up with Greig and Clare and did a few walks...

A few old mills up the valley

This kind of flower display can be seen all over the Alps, but I've never quite believed they were real (so I actually checked)