Savouring – The Snuggles, The Food, The Family Time

09/26/21

Lake and I had church from the couch on this specific Sunday.

He slept in until 10:30 and was back down for a large nap only an hour and a half later, after only having laid on the floor, or me, during his awake time between. Refusing any food or drink, aside from coffee 🤪

I can’t lie and say I didn’t actually sort of like the snuggles and calmness 🙈
It truly was the first time in his first year of life (aside from the baby days when he didn’t really have any say 🤪) that he willingly clung to me, and wanted to continue doing so 💗

The rest of the family that had attended church, returned with lunch from another Greek restaurant that we had on our ‘to eat’ list 😉

We decided that it did have the better meat compared to the first Greek restaurant we’d went to.
Looks aside 🤪 Why does it seem like some of the tastiest foods, look the least appealing?
So, if you’re ever in the area, make a point to go to ‘Grill Am Bahnhof’ and order Gyros, you can thank us later.

Lake stayed asleep until after lunch, which is always a nice treat 🙈 Once he awoke and seen the kids, he really perked up and seemed to be doing better ☺️

We went for a little visit to some family/friends from church later that afternoon and then popped in to say hello to some more family after that 😅 Mike has no shortage of family, friends and friends like family and so on and so forth, so if we ever had ‘spare’ time, it wasn’t hard to fill 🤪

Originally we’d planned to go back to John and Inge’s that evening, but after learning they’d both be working, we figured we’d might as well stay another night at the sisters, if she’d have us 😉

Once the children were all in bed, we were treated to an evening spread of veggies, sausages and bread with a feta/tomato dip 👌🏼

A Delightful Descent Into Decrepitness

Mineral soaking by 8:00 am.  

If you’d ever have suggested that would be me… I’d never ever, EVER have believed you 😂

Lake slept good and I did too thanks to the medicated assist 🤪👍🏻 (Mike nearly always sleeps good. Just letting you know this fact so it doesn’t seem like I don’t care about his sleep quality 😉.)

It was still a 6:30 am wake up from him though and unfortunately we couldn’t find any restaurants that were open that early and if we waited until they were, it would be passed the  ‘first nap’ 😅

The new scheduling conflicts a baby produces 🤪

So instead, we hung out in the hotel room and filled the jacuzzi for Lake to enjoy for a bit and ordered breakfast in from the hotel restaurant.

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Tub time was just the right thing to tire out the sapling and he fell asleep on the sidelines of watching soccer with dad 😉

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Breakfast (though not presented prettily due to it having to be eating in our room 🤪) was good!
It was a BBQ breakfast bowl and I’ve begun to really love breakfast bowls.

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I like things drenched in sauce, if a sauce is available and I prefer savoury to sweet.
So the idea of potatoes wedges, meat, eggs and veggies, topped with sauce as a way to begin the day, is an appealing one 😉👌🏻

 

It was a beautiful day, so once Lake awoke, we headed outside to enjoy it ☺️

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We walked through the farmers market and then found ourselves at Wildflowers Bistro & Boutique.

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It was an eclectic little place to explore while waiting for our pecan sticky bun and caramel macchiato, which we then took to enjoy in the nearby park.

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We sat on a bench and dug out the paper bags contents.

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The sticky bun was nice and light without being too airy and sweet but not sickly so and the macchiato was just like Starbucks 😉

The Wandering Market was visited next, as I had read they had pottery mugs available.
There were a few but not quite what I was looking for, so we went back out to explore. Many murals were spotted along our way, which I found to be a charming characteristic 😉

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Popping in and out of gift shops and home decor stores, enjoying the sunshine in between each.

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My ever patient shopping companions  😉

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We stopped in at Taste Patisserie by Katrina, as we always try to hit some sort of bakery on our trips.

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It smelt delicious upon entering and the clean, simplistic elegance was noted and appreciated😉

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What wasn’t my favourite was that none of the goods displayed had either names/descriptions or prices.
I hate having to ask prices of things 🥴
There were two sandwich cookies to choose from, s’more or white chocolate and lemon.
I should have went for the second flavour but they were decent sized cookies and I figured my husband would share with me and he’s not huge on lemon flavours.
So, s’more it was 🤪
It was a mistake in the fact that he didn’t even really feel like cookie so didn’t want more than a bite and I don’t LOVE chocolate 🙈 But I could still appreciate the fact that it was a VERY good cookie sandwich, the texture being very pleasing 😉

It was then nap time ‘for Lake’ 😉😜

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So we walked back to the hotel and all partook in the nap time… an aspect of travelling with a child, that you will not find me arguing about 😴

We decided to go explore via vehicle for a little while, grabbing a Starbucks (as the room only had a Keurig machine, so I couldn’t make use of the coffee grounds I brought 😩) on the way to observing homes and architecture.

Then pausing that exploration, we stopped to try to get some photos.

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As mom is always the one behind the camera capturing cute little father/son moments, she was feeling a little left out 🙈 …and I loved all of our outfits and wanted them documented 🤪

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Stealing kisses.

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Believe it or not… this is the narrowed down version. My apologies 🤪

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We decided to eat at The Mad Greek again, since we don’t have greek food available anywhere by us, we figured we ought to make use of it while it was there 👌🏻

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Mike got the boneless dry ribs and Greek salad and I got the feta fries so we could sort of share the two.

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It should have been called FETA with a couple of fries, as there was a LOT feta 😅
Thankfully it wasn’t as strong as the regular feta and it was easy to move around to equal out the fries and sauce ratio to go with each bite 😉
They were both very good dishes but it got to be a bit of the same flavour, so I’d say that’s where the previous nights platter was nice in offering variety.

The pool was calling our names, so we changed and went up to enjoy them for a while before bedtime, using swimming as a hopeful way to tire out the son 😋 As soon as I stepped into the pool holding him, he tried to lunge out of my arms towards the water 😅

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He truly enjoys himself in the water, splashing and playing but also completely relaxing when being held and allowed to simply float.

 

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They have flags hanging above the pool… can you spot the one for The Netherlands? 😉

 

Lake had begun to show a little bit of a rash that morning and I sent a photo to his Oma to diagnose as it had progressively gotten worse come evening.
Her conclusion – heat rash.
Which made sense with the temperature of the mineral pool and him having his wet swim stuff on so much. It’s very handy having a pharmacist on call to ease mom stress 😉
I’m paranoid that he will have an allergic reaction to something and I won’t know what to do 😅😬

 

He wasn’t overly content in his bed so he eventually ended up in ours for the night.

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I was wrong to expect the king size bed would offer us space from his tossing and turning though 🤪

Well, reading this now, I see my life and what it was reduced to during this getaway – mineral soaks, naps and eating at the same restaurant more than once… how old did I turn anyways ?!?! 😂

 

Decrepit – 
 
de·crep·it
/dəˈkrepət/
 
adjective  (of a person) elderly and infirm.
feeble,  infirm, weakly, wasted, doddering, out of shape, in bad shape, aged, ancient, 
long in the tooth, senile, past it, over the hill, no spring chicken
 
worn out or ruined because of age or neglect.
“centuries-old buildings, now decrepit and black with soot”
 

Road-tripping Further Into The Americas

Saturday March 3rd –

 

We woke up, packed up and said our adieus around 8:30, beginning the 7 ish hour drive to AZ.

We stopped in Las Vegas to try out a Greek restaurant the sister had recommend but before we could get to it to eat, we had an appetizer of free, sugar cinnamon pretzels because a pretzel place was celebrating its anniversary 😜👌🏻🥨

 

The Trump Tower was spotted and in no regards to the man or what he stands for and putting all and any political/lifestyle opinions aside… he knows how to make a tower 😎

Continue reading “Road-tripping Further Into The Americas”

Purely For Practicalities Sake

Sunday Dec 11th –

 

 
We took ‘the day of rest’ literally 😒

Sick in bed we stayed for much of the morning and once we left the comfort of the room it was mainly a relocation to the couch 🙄

Mike went to the nearby co-op once it opened at noon and got strawberries and bananas to top the French toast casserole he’d got me to make the night before 😏

Brunch was served 🍓🍌🍞🍴

A nap was taken 😴❤️

I did complete the days verse later on in the day and was rather pleased with the results pounding head pushed aside momentarily🌵💕

 

 

Continue reading “Purely For Practicalities Sake”

Straight Up Awful (…Awfully Good)

Sunday Nov 13th –
 

Mike was my driver and actually my translator once again.
He wondered how he did but really, unless he was silent more than half the time I would have no idea if he did badly, I don’t understand German, hence needing the translation Michiel😏
But I think he did well 😉

As we were dismissed from church, my stomach was growling immensely, causing my mind to wander to more lunch like things 😬

I thought of the spicy, potato like pastry Mike and I had on our honeymoon, of the gravy filled, sausage and pie like dish eaten in Switzerland, of the beef patties eaten years ago in Jamaica.
It was alllll coming back to me in those few moments.
The foods I longed for but would probably never eat again…

But then we went out for Greek food for lunch and I forgot about it 🙈


Lunch was delicious, as usual there at Greek restaurant by the train station 😏👌🏻🍴

 

Continue reading “Straight Up Awful (…Awfully Good)”

My First Pomelo And A Vase Of Yellow (ish)

Sunday Oct 30th –

 

 

 

Last Sunday we woke up too late, this Sunday it was too early 🙄

Our neighbour below enjoys his music played loudly and at 6:30 am it was frustrating Mike so he got up and ready to go knock on their door but then decided not to.
Him getting up, woke me up… a whole hour to early 😳😠

The new coffee beans got tested and they were a whole lot better than the others, but not as good as the ones before 😕
I think this ‘finding new beans’ will be a long process ☕️

We left and I got to hold cupcakes for the hour long drive 😋


Continue reading “My First Pomelo And A Vase Of Yellow (ish)”

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