That last little trip

Roadtrip to Germany, man!


The drive there (I say, as a passenger the whole way) was a breeze. Everyone was sleeping, or content, even showing happy affection:


We stayed in a temporary lodging facility at Vogelweh, a base about 10-15 minutes from Ramstein Air Base. It was spacious and pretty nice. The only thing was that after putting Zach to bed on the sofabed (and Gabe in the porta-crib next to it), we had to sneak out of the bedroom to get to the bathroom. He took longer than normal to fall asleep, so we were met with many wide-awake "Hi, Daddy!"s and "Hi, Mommy!"s. By the second night we'd caught onto the fact that he kept throwing Monkey on the floor so we'd pick him up and say goodnight again.


At Vogelweh there was a playground, which we visited exactly once (all we had time for) but that Zach asked to go to probably a hundred times. He had fun; he is able to climb more now and is definitely fearless most of the time. It was just sooooo sunny and warm, much more than any weather we've had in Brussels yet. I'm not looking forward to St. Louis mugginess...


It felt like we ate so much during those two days! I don't even know the last time I had Taco Bell or Cinnabon.


The BX/PX was the biggest one I've seen so far. It was the length of the entire mall, and there was even a big scrapbooking section. They had tons more selection than we are used to at the base near us. In addition to the big food court and the kid's area there are a salon and barber shop, spa, local souvenir shops, a huge bookstore separate from the BX/PX, and a theater (didn't get to take advantage of that one...). We had plenty of time to spend, but we still felt rushed because of the boys getting cranky while we shopped. But we saw lots, and it was nice to get away and be around "American stuff."


Zach had a meltdown in the bookstore...we're not really sure why, other than he was just tired. We kept trying to explain to him that we were going to buy the books he wanted; I'm still not really sure what all the fuss was about. We calmed him down (Frank had to run out to the car to get Monkey) and knew that it was time to go home.