Monday, November 26, 2007

Rhineland Germany, not Wisconsin!

We took a few road trips over this past extended holiday weekend. I decided to blow Thursday and Friday off from work since us Americans have such few holidays when compared to our European colleagues. Since I had Mom and Nolan in town, I decided to give the family an opportunity to see whatever they wanted to see in Europe. Becki and my Mother both wanted to visit a good old fashioned mid evil castle, akin to what they see in classic Disney films. My brother, however, had a different agenda. At the tender age of 15 years old, he had ‘Amsterdam’ on his mind.

Leaving Becki, Maggie and my mother at the apartment, Nolan and I gassed up the rental car (which has never been driven on the Nürburgring) and headed west for the Netherlands. It was actually a pretty quick drive. The total distance was only ~320 kilometers (200 miles).

Before we got to the city of Amsterdam, I decided to make a side trip to the coastal town of Zandvoort. I randomly picked this town because of its proximity to the North Sea. However, I soon learned that there is a famous formula one track of the same name right next to the beach. I tried to stop and get pictures, but all of the access gates were closed. It’s too bad because it looked like a really cool track being totally surrounded by many sand dunes.

On the way into Amsterdam, we saw all sorts of goofy cars. Some woman was starting her own fruit smoothy business and covered her entire minivan type vehicle in artificial grass. Next, we saw some old man driving a golf cart sized car on the bike path. Apparently, these tiny little vehicles are allowed to share the bike lanes along with all these little three wheel local delivery vehicles. All that was missing from the bike lanes were a pack of Free Masons. Oh wait, it was Thanksgiving Day… that would explain the lack men with funny hats.

The city of Amsterdam was nice. We actually had decent weather. The first time I visited this city in 2005, it rained the whole day I was there. This time, we were actually a little lucky as the sun came out for a better half of the day. Most of the day was spent wondering around music stores and just people watching. We ate lunch at a little Pizza place right next to the city center. We paid €30 (~$44) for two crummy personal pizzas, a coke and a beer. When it came time to pay the bill, the bad waiter looked as if he was expecting a tip... since we were American and all.

I don’t think so pal! If he could have seen my bitchin’ Mercedes, he would have noticed the German license plate… and that’s just how I roll: NO TIP FOR YOU!

After lunch, I took my brother through the red light district and showed him what a “real” prostitute looked like. He commented on how they looked nothing like the ones in the movies. We also walked through some museum of hemp. I showed him that marijuana usage does not turn you into a violent criminal like the mass media has led you believe. However, I also showed him how usage can easily turn a normal productive citizen into one of the many smelly homeless hippies walking in and out of the coffee shops. I think my plan worked when a hippy walked by and Nolan said: “Wow, that guy REALLY smelled like Ozzfest.”

That about did it for our trip to Amsterdam. Next stop, the Rhine!

Using some jankety web site, I was able to get two rooms in the city of Bacharach Germany, which earned a one star rating from a single previous review. The hotel earned this one star status based on its supposed lack of cleanliness, wood paneling, and proximity to train tracks (approximately 10 feet). Needless to say, we weren’t expecting much for €58 a night.

However, after arriving at the Hotel on Friday evening, we were delightfully surprised. Becki and I were upgraded to the larger triple room at no cost, both rooms were surprisingly clean, and the train tracks were probably more like 12 feet away rather than 10. It was quite the score.

The town of Bacharach is a neat little town. Everything is built on the old city layout from a thousand years ago. The Hotel itself is situated in one of the nine original guard towers. The four foot thick stone walls made the trains (which passed by every 3 minutes or so) virtually unnoticeable. Inside the city walls, all of the streets were old cobblestone and just a little bit wider than the width of one rental car. The town had one old church and one new one. The “new” church was built in the 1600’s some time. Finally, the town is over looked by the Castle Stahleck or ‘Burg Stahleck’ as the Germans say.

After checking into our rooms and parking the rental car, we quickly walked through the little village and grabbed dinner at a local restaurant. Mom sampled some of the famous Rhine area whines while I stuck with my favorite Alte (old style) Bier (beer). Becki tried a Dunkelweizen (dark wheat) and decided that would be her new favorite German style of beer.

After a brief walk down to the river the next morning, we headed off on our castle hunting expedition. Our main goal was to tour the famous Rhine castle “Marksburg”. All of the Rhine castles had originally been destroyed (typically by the French) and rebuilt from the rubble at one time in their thousand year(s) existence. The only exception to this is the Castle Marksburg. Not only has it been mostly restored, but all of the structure and foundations are as true today as they were when originally build back in 1100 AD.

The drive down to Marksburg was nothing short of spectacular. The scenery along the Rhine River is straight out of a fairy tale. All the little villages look like something in children book or model. Each little village seemed to have some sort of Castle or remains perched above on a hill side. Half way to Marksburg, we had to take a ferry boat across the river since there are no bridges across the Rhine between the cities of Koblenz (50 km away) and Mainz (75 km away). Besides, what trip to the Rhine would be complete without a river cruise of some sort?

Abandoning the navigation systems crappy advice and instead going by instinct (i.e. following the damn signs) we eventually found the visitors parking lot for Castle Marksburg. We each pony’d up the five Euros for the guided tour since this is the only way you are allowed to walk inside the castle. On the (German spoken) tour, we able to see the batteries, kitchen, guard towers, ye’ old TOILET, stables, and chapel with its original paintings from year 1100AD. The castle was pretty incredible and well worth the money. The tour guide even stopped and repeated some of the REALLY cool stuff in English, even though we already had an English written handout that explained each room.

On the way back to Bacharach, we made a pit stop and explored the “Loreley Rock”. The Loreley Rock is a famous section of the Rhine River. Since this is the narrowest portion of the (navigatable) Rhine River, the current at Loreley is pretty fierce. The legend is that the devil himself tried to slam shut the river valley, but the power of the Rhine was too strong and eventually prevailed. However, the Loreley Rock was the devil’s final strong hold and some say he is still trying to close off the valley to this day. Because of this, many sailing ships have crashed on the shoals surrounding the Loreley. Whatever the legend is, this was a really great vantage point to take many pictures of the Rhine River below.

Returning back to our hotel in the town of Bacharach, we ventured out in the evening to take a closer look at one of the other old city gates on the far end of town. This one particular gate is still being used as the main entrance into town from the west. It is only one car width wide and serves as a reminder that this village is much older than anything which passes through this gate. The light from the full moon above helped add to a certain ominous that was already in the air. Nolan tried hiding in the old city gate pretending to be a gargoyle, but the sub freezing temperatures quickly moved him back inside.

On Sunday afternoon, we dropped off my mother and Nolan for their (hopefully) quick and peaceful return flight back to the states. It sure was nice having them around to help with the baby and everything else. After getting back to our apartment on Sunday evening, both Becki and I commented on how quiet things suddenly were and how much larger the apartment felt. At this rate, we should be returning to our “palace” in Westland next month!

Looking forward to seeing everyone again, hope you all had a great holiday as well!

Monday, November 12, 2007

Lions, Tigers and Bears... and Schwebebahns... and beer tents!

Saturday, we decided to take a drive into the Rhineland and explore the city Zoo in “Wuppertal”. The city of Wuppertal (translation: ‘River Valley’) was about an hour drive on the Autobahn to the west. The weather forecast was for on and off rain showers with temperatures hovering around 4˚C (40˚F). We made sure that Maggie was well bundled up. Maggie dressed for the cold weather

Because of the cool(er) temperatures, we virtually had the zoo to ourselves. We saw maybe a dozen other people the entire time we were there. It was a fairly nice zoo too! They had a large Tiger and Lion display. Unfortunately, the Lions were inside their warm dens avoiding the cold outside. I wish we would have known this after walking up the large hill to the Lion den. The “Wupper” in Wuppertal is a very steep valley, meaning lots of hills to walk up and down. Both Becki and I were pretty worn out by the time we reached the end of the zoo trail.

After the zoo, we took the Schwebebahn to the city center (Zentrum). The Schwebebahn is the local mass transit system (train) that has been in use for the past 80 – 90 years. The catch, is that the Schwebebahn is a suspended train that hangs directly over the center of the river. I guess real estate was at such a premium 90 years ago that the only place they had left for a public transit train was directly over the river. It made for a unique and exciting ride.

We eventually found a nice local tavern in the large and busy city center of Wuppertal to enjoy a late lunch (~4PM). Maggie was on her best behavior the entire time. All of the waitresses had to stop by so they could “ooh and ahh” over our well behaved baby. We felt a little strange taking Maggie into an otherwise non-family style restaurant, but there were a couple other parties with strollers (Kinderwagon) so we weren’t the only ones with such a small child there. I have a baby... in a bar!

After dinner, we hurried back to Lippstadt so we could get some groceries before the stores closed at 8PM. If we didn’t get any groceries by Saturday night, we would have to wait until Monday since none of the markets are open on Sunday’s. Silly German laws. Anyway, the shopping carts aren’t setup the same way as they are in America. The baby seats don’t fit in the front child seat area and they have to be placed in the main basket. Maggie didn’t mind, but I could only imagine what people were thinking as we walked by… “I didn’t know they sold BABIES in this store!!!” Baby sale in aisle twelve!

On Sunday, we tried our luck with the German train system. We started the day off by walking the ~1 mile to the Lippstadt train station and purchased two round trip tickets to the neighboring city of Soest. Since the city of Soest was having a large festival (supposedly the largest inner city festival in all of Germany) we decided to leave the baby stroller at home and have Becki “Moby Wrap” the baby to herself for the entire day. Once Maggie was wrapped up, Becki put her coat on over the baby leaving only Maggie’s head exposed to the outside world. This commanded all sorts of strange looks from ever single passer-by.

The Soest festival was indeed huge. We suppressed our initial appetite with a HUGE salted pretzel that was big enough for Becki and me to share. The city was setup with lots and lots of carnival rides. However, German carnival rides are a lot larger and more extreme that those back home in America. Apparently personal liability suites aren’t a big problem in Europe. Some of the rides we saw over here would NEVER fly in America. There was a large swing ride that not only spun passengers around in their swings, but also shot them up at least 100 feet in the air while doing so. We both decided that Maggie should probably wait at least another year before trying this ride out.

Instead, we paid the €8 for all three of us to ride the giant Ferris Wheel in the center of town. The view from the top was pretty awesome… but also very brisk. This entire weekend has been very windy and the wind chill was rather bitter once the wheel reached the upper half of its circle.

After chilling ourselves on the wheel, we walked into the main beer tent. There was enough room for Becki, Maggie and I to get our own table upstairs. We ordered two large beers and the local special plate for lunch. The special plate was essentially two giant pieces of (mystery) meat, a healthy portion of sauerkraut, a slice of rye bread and little serving of mustard. After walking around the festival all day, neither one of us had any difficulty finishing our turkey / beef / pork / horse or whatever meat.

It drizzled on us a little bit while walking back to the train station (bahnhof), but Maggie was well covered up in Becki’s skiing jacket. Once we made it back to the apartment, both Becki and I about fell to the ground from exhaustion. Maggie, however, had (still has) different plans. Since she was sleeping during most of the excursion into Soest, therefore she is now well rested and wants to play with Mom or Dad.

Both Becki and I can’t wait until Grandma Sue comes next weekend!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

We want mail!

Here is a picture of Becki and Maggie in front of our new apartment. If anybody feels like sending us a postcard in the next few weeks, please write to:

The Bayley’s
Borlinghauser Str. 33
59557 Lippstadt, NRW
Deutschland (Germany)

Becki and Maggie in front of Lippstadt Apartment

Happy Halloween!

Happy (belated) Halloween!!

Pretty bad to miss posting for my very favorite holiday, eh? We're settling in at our new apartment in Lippstadt, Germany. They don't actually celebrate 'Halloween' here, so we just took pictures in the little costume I couldn't resist on our couch :)

Andy works during the day (of course), and I've been doing my new work from 'home' job a bit during the day, and some in the evenings. There's a mini-Meijer type store about a block away, so I usually make a trip for groceries each afternoon as well. We've got a fridge, but no freezer. This isn't quite as annoying as the fact that we have a clothes washer, but no dryer. Each day I try to do one load of laundry, so it has the rest of the day and night to dry on the drying rack before the new load the next day. Crazy!

Last weekend we just hung out around here. The neighbors downstairs (she's from Kentucky!) took us out to brunch and to a children's flea market on Sunday. Next weekend we're going out with some of Andy's co-workers on Friday, then maybe to a huge festival in Soest by train on Saturday or Sunday. Soest is a town or two away.

We'll keep you updated!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Happy Autumn!

Maggie was having loads of fun at Grandma Judi and Grandpa Roger's place this past weekend. Grandma Judi hallowed out the largest pumpkin she could find and plopped her granddaughter down inside. Maggie had a blast, as the above picture clearly indicates. We are disappointed that we will likely be overseas for Halloween this year, but look forward to next year when Maggie will hopefully be a little more mobile.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Wordless Wednesday

Moving to Germany... sort of.

Going to Germany

The initial move date has been set for October 22nd of this year (2007). Andy, Becki and Maggie will all be temporarily relocating to Germany for two months. It’s not as much a relocation move as it is an extended vacation. The family will be back home in time for Christmas, but Thanksgiving will be put on hold this year. Although we are a little shaky with our European history, we’re pretty sure that the Germans didn’t have a large harvest feast with the Native Americans shortly after landing at Plymouth Rock. Andy’s mother and Nolan were talking about visiting us over the Thanksgiving week. It would be nice to have English speaking visitors. Andy might have to go back for a few weeks in January, but Maggie and Becki will be staying in Michigan after Christmas.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Friday, September 07, 2007

American Cancer Society Relay for Life

This year, Maggie and I will be walking in the Hartland, Michigan Relay for Life in memory of my friend, Suzanne, who passed away two years ago from breast cancer.

She's part of the inspiration for Margaret Suzanne's middle name, and I hope little Maggie can get a portion of her positive outlook and love of life.

To donate, please visit my page here.

Awww!!!

Here's our baby Maggie having found her own thumb the other night as she fell asleep. Maggie Sucking Her Thumb

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Labor Day Beach Party - 2007

This past weekend, we invited some friends from out of town up to the family cottage in Caseville MI for a weekend of good old R&R, Michigan style. Friends came up from as far as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, D.C., South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida and even Texas. People started showing up at our home on Friday afternoon. We spent all evening catching up on events and eating some BBQ'd burgers and dogs. On Saturday, the group caravanned up to Caseville and spent the rest of the weekend lakeside.

The jet ski's were a popular hit, especially since the big boat is (yet again) down with a bad motor. One of Andy's co-workers was kind enough to loan him an inner tube that could be towed behind one of the jet skis. All of the men lined up to prove their "manliness" on this inflatable tube of death, then paid the price the following days with sore backs, arms and butts. Everyone agrees that it was still well worth the pain and suffering.


Maggie and her Daddy Friday night at home.
Maggie and her Daddy

Saturday afternoon on the Beach in Caseville. We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was BEAUTIFUL!
Fun on the Beach

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Welcome Home Maggie Sue!

Sunday, July 22nd 2007:
Becki and I didn’t have any plans, so we decided to sleep in and lazily hang out around the house. In my normal fashion, I crankily laid in bed while Becki got up and shuffled around the house. Around 10AM Becki came into the bedroom and had a short conversation with me. It went something like this:

Becki: ”It’s time to get up.”
Andy: ”Go away, I’m sleeping…”
Becki: ”Come on, you really need to get up now.”
Andy: ”Leave me alone, I’ll get up when I’m ready.”
Becki: ”Well, I either pee’d myself, or my water just broke.”
Andy: ”I’m awake! I’m awake! I’m awake!”

Indeed, Becki’s water broke sometime around 10:00 AM. Soon afterwards, moderate contractions started to appear. Knowing that pre-labor can sometimes take days, Becki took a long hot shower while I cooked up some pancakes and sausage. After finishing breakfast, we noticed that Becki’s contractions were about 4 – 5 minutes apart and lasting at least 60 seconds. This is when I called the midwife and informed her of our situation. She told me to finish up breakfast, pack up the car, and then head over to the birthing center.

On the car ride to the birthing center (read: not hospital), Becki’s contractions were starting to get noticeably more intense. We arrived at 2:30PM where the midwife immediately got us comfortable and laid us down on the bed in the birthing room. By 3PM, the labor contractions were in full swing. It took us a few hours to find a good “routine” that helped us deal with the labor pains, especially in the new environment.

After laboring in pain on the bed for ~6 hours, we “thought” we were getting close to transformation (the pushing stage) since her dilation was at 9.5 cm (10 cm is fully dilated.) This is when we decided to give the hot tub a try. The tub was amazing. It took sooo much pressure away from Becki and her back. Unfortunately, it also slowed down the contractions. When she first got into the tub, contractions were about 3 – 4 minutes apart. After one hour in the tub, they had spaced out to 10 – 15 minutes. Another two hours in the tub, they were 20 – 30 minutes apart. The contractions were still VERY intense, but they weren’t as frequent anymore.

(Transitioning into) Monday, July 23rd 2007:
Becki tried to push during some of the contractions while in the tub, but they were no longer close enough. The midwife suggested that we use this temporary lapse in frequent contractions to “recharge” ourselves. Becki was actually able to get a few naps between some of the contractions.

Somewhere around midnight, we made the decision to go back onto the bed. Almost immediately, the contractions came back at a frequency of every 3 minutes or so. We did this for 3 hours, until I put Becki BACK into the tub. Sure enough, just as before, the tub had TOO GOOD of a relaxing effect and Becki’s contractions initially spaced out to 20 – 30 minutes. However, 4 hours in the tub later, the frequency finally picked itself back up to 4 – 5 minutes.

Becki tried a few pushes in the tub again, but the midwife suggested she get out and try to use the “birthing stool” aka: the metal frame of torturous death. Becki tried to push for an hour while sitting on the MFofTD, but little to no progress was being made. Since we had both been awake for almost 24 hours at this point, the midwife suggested we use the next few hours to try and sleep. This would hopefully “recharge” us enough to start the pushing process with more effect.

Sure, this might have sounded like a good idea, but the only thing comparable to sleeping with contractions ever 3 – 4 minutes is being NEXT to someone who is trying to sleep with contractions every 3 – 4 minutes. Needless to say, neither one of us got any sleep. The next 8… long… painful hours were spent coping with these contractions. Becki was told to try pushing whenever she felt the peak of a contraction, but according to Becki everything felt like one long continuous contraction. Shitty.

At 4PM, the midwife decided “it was time” and she was going to get this baby out of Becki, even if she had to reach in there and pull Maggie out by her ears. During the pushing phase, I noticed three main “stages” of positions that the baby was in:

Stage I: the baby’s head passes the pubic bone and is just barely visible
Stage II: the baby’s head crowns and the entire head is exposed
Stage III: the remainder of the baby (shoulders, torso, legs, etc…) is pushed out

Stage “I” was by far, the biggest hurdle for Becki to clear. It took Becki from 4PM until 6:30’ish to clear the pubic bone. There was some serious pushing that Becki had to do. On her right hand, there are some rather impressive bruises from squeezing the posts on the headboard ever so tightly. Once the baby's head had cleared the pubic bone, the midwives (there were two of them working with us by this point) were excited to show me the progress. I’m glad Becki couldn’t see this because my first reaction was: “That’s it? All that f$@#ing pushing and that’s only as far as this thing has come out?” Of course, I didn’t say this too Becki. My ‘softened’ statement was: “Wow, you are SOOO close! Just a few more pushes and we’re home free!” …which was 100% bullshit.

Stage “II” came shortly after Stage ”I” but Becki R-E-A-L-L-Y had to work for it. This is when Becki’s facial expressions transformed from that sweet and innocent wife of mine to something akin to “God of Hell Fire.” It still took almost an hour for the head to crown / clear, but this was a lot less (time wise) than it took to originally clear the pubic bone.

The crowning of the head is a pretty messed up thing to watch. I supposedly saw this once before while I watched my brother being born back in 1992… but I didn’t remember what the actual crowning looked like. Knowing what I know now, I intentionally erased that image from mind some 15 years ago (i.e. It’s not pleasant.) Anyway, the crowning is when the head has passed the “half-way” point and the rest of the head suddenly slides out. I use the word “half-way” loosely because the crowning point is not necessarily at the widest part of the head. Ya see, a babies head is very soft since the skull is still in a few smaller pieces. This causes the babies head to compress, a lot, so it can fit out of the birth canal.

Once the baby passed the crowning point, the head expanded to THREE TIMES its previous size! It almost looked like a balloon that immediately was filled with helium. I couldn’t believe something that huge came out of a hole that small. Another thing that freaked me out a little was the color. Since Maggie wasn’t breathing on her own yet (normal) her entire head was purple. I thought to myself: ”Great, my wife just gave birth to a giant smurf.”

Once the head was fully exposed, it was time to push the rest of the baby out (Stage III). After clearing Stage II, Becki was almost completely out of energy. I remember her asking the midwife: ”Will the rest of the body be that difficult to push out as well?” The midwife just smiled and told her to keep pushing. ONE PUSH later, the rest of the baby just slid right out. Narrow girl shoulders for the win!

My immediate reaction was: ”OMG, what is that multi-colored slime covered thing?” Then about one millisecond later, I realized it was my own flesh and blood. Another millisecond later, I busted out in tears as I welcomed my little girl to her new world.

It was 7:20 PM on Monday July 23rd of 2007.

At this point in most birth stories, people finish up with ”and they lived happily ever after.” However, such was not the case with us. The real excitement was just about to begin. With Maggie happily laying on Becki’s chest, it was time for the afterbirth. After one more final push, the placenta slid out like a greasy 20oz prime cut rib-eye steak. No big deal, everything looked great. At this point in the evening, the midwives told Becki: ”Everything is great, you just need to stop bleeding now… OK, stop bleeding… anytime now… stop the bleeding… you’re not stopping… really, you need to stop bleeding… this isn’t good Becki, you need to stop right now…”

Obviously Becki couldn’t do anything about the bleeding and the midwives were just trying to subconsciously persuade Becki to stop bleeding. I’m glad I only saw the upper half of the action because that was a bloody enough show for me. The next few things that happened were kind of a blur, but I do remember Becki handing me the baby and hearing the midwife say “…get ready to dial 9-1-1!”

One of the midwives tried to locate the cause of the bleeding by reaching completely inside Becki and pulling out CLUMPS of blood clots. That was a sight I could have gone my entire life without ever seeing. The blood was still POURING out of Becki though, and there was obviously a larger clot that was still inside her. The bleeding needed to be stopped or else Becki was going to be transferred to the Emergency Room at the closest hospital (~5 minutes away).

A little known “natural” method of slowing blood loss is to ingest Oxytocin. A good source of oxytocin is the placenta… and hey, whatever was good for the baby should be good enough for mama, right? So, in a final natural attempt to save my wife’s life, one of the midwives cut off a small piece of the placenta, gave it to Becki and said: “Chew on this… chew on this as your life depends on it!” Being the ultimate trooped she is, Becki chewed on her own babies placenta… for three seconds… at which point she gagged and spit the piece right back out.

It took everything I had to hold down lunch.

Finally, just seconds before the assistant was going to dial 9-1-1, the midwife pulled out a H-U-G-E blood clot approximately the size of a softball. Shortly after the blood clot was removed from the uterus, the blood faucet slowly started to stop bleeding but not after Becki lost over a QUART of blood in the process. Yes, a QUART. Not a pint, but a QUART. Four Cups!!! Everybody was a mess. It looked like the set of a B-rate horror movie from the 1970’s.

Becki and I took a few hours to regroup before we left for home. Since Becki had lost a large amount of blood, she wasn’t able to walk on her own power. The midwives offered us the room for the night (again) but we were REALLY tired of being at the birth center. We wanted to go home. I grabbed one of the rolling office chairs from behind the work desk and wheeled Becki out to the car while the assistant grabbed Maggie in her car carrier.

After a short stop at McDonalds to get Mamma a celebratory chocolate shake, we were home. It was 11:58 PM on Monday July 23rd 2007. Even after all the delays, confusion, and scares, we are still glad that we were able to have the birth “our” way: 100% natural.

We were now home. The entire healthy family, all three of us.

One Hour OldMaggie and Daddy Mamma taking a well deserved nap