Flying Trampoline!

Saturday morning, Eric got up before me (shocking!!).  We were having a big storm that had lasted all night--rain, wind, etc.  A couple of minutes later he walks into our room and says, "I have bad news--our trashcans blew away and our trampoline."  WHAT!?!?!?!?  Our trampoline blew away--our brand new trampoline!!  We live on the ocean, so it is pretty windy, but we had no idea it could be that windy!

Anyways, I jump up and we look out the windows and can't see it anywhere.  Our backyard is surrounded by a 6 foot fence and we have a pretty decent size yard.  Our neighbors yard is behind us and then there is a street.  Finally we saw the trampoline all the way over on the street behind us.  Somehow the wind had picked up our 150 lb. + trampoline and it blew over our 6 foot fence, our neighbors yard and into the street.  Eric and I ran out and in the rain and had to carry our trampoline around the block in the rain and wind--it was CRAZY!!!  We brought the trampoline into the front yard and then had to tie it down because it kept trying to fly away.

Anyways, the picture above says it all--there is our mangled trampoline--the kids got 3 good weeks of use out of it!!!  I have to admit, we did go out and buy a  new one--the kids LOVED jumping on the trampoline and it was worth every penny.  This time we will make sure to stake it down and tie it to the house!!!

Life is never boring at the Nelson house!!!

Christmas 2012!!

We had a FABULOUS Christmas!  I will let the pictures speak for themselves!!

Kids in their new Christmas clothes

Santa came!

Ethan testing out his new bike

This was the highlight of Christmas--a present for the kids and me--they LOVE the trampoline and spend hours on it everyday!!

New remote control car

Cade loves pirates and that was the theme of this Christmas for him!

New ballerina nightgown

New pirate jammies

Star wars legos--two of Ethan's favorite things!

Fancy Nancy in español!

Skyping with Grandpa and Grandma and opening gifts with them

La programa navidad de escuela

A couple of days before Christmas, the parents were invited to school for a Navidad Program.  Each class did a little number and it was so cute--at times a little bizarre--some of the numbers had NOTHING to do with Christmas or the holidays (they like had aliens in them), but nonetheless it was so cute.  Here is Kailey's class singing a song in Spanish:

That guy with the bald head at the bottom of the picture is her teacher Pablo and he seriously is the best teacher ever--Kailey adores him!

Here is one of the other classes--dressed in black trash bags singing a song about nothing related to Christmas--Spanish public school is a little bit different from American schools!

 Ethan's class sang a song about Christmas trees and they were dressed up like trees--it was adorable.  He was in the back, so I don't have too many really good pictures of him, but I was so proud of him he sang so many of the words in Spanish!

Nuremburg, Rotenberg and Frankfurt, Germany

The last couple of days of our trip were spent in Nuremburg, Rotenberg and then driving back to the airport we stopped in Frankfurt for a couple of hours.  Nuremburg and Rotenberg are absoluetly charming.  Rotenberg is really cool because it has a stone wall that surrounds the city.  Anyways, here are the rest of the pictures:

Another big Christmas pyramid

The kids loved the snow--Ethan and Kailey loved to throw snowballs at me!

Love the German architecture

At night the markets were so gorgeous with the lights

Nuremburg is famous for these plum people--they make people out of dried plums!

Here is Rotenberg--again it is really quaint and charming!

This clock had people come out of it--it was pretty fun to watch.

My kids love to have their pictures taken!

Climbing up to walk around the wall that surrounds the city

View from the wall

Another merry-go-round!

Driving back to the airport we had about a 4 1/2 hour drive, so we broke it up and stopped in Frankfurt at the natural history museum.  The kids loved it and Kailey, as usual, was full of questions and Eric ended up explaining evolution to her and she just was fascinated by it!  The museum had tons of cool dinosaur fossils, which was fun to see.  Ethan is learning about prehistoric times in school so he had all interesting facts to tell us!

They had tons of cool dinosaur fossils.

Taking a nap with the dinosaur

Looking back at our pictures as I have posted this makes me realize just how much fun we had.  This seriously was one of the best vacations we have ever done.  Germany during Christmas time is magical and charming.  I highly recommend visiting!!  Hopefully we will make it back to Germany again sometime!!