We are still here!

I think if you Googled slacker/worst blogger in the world you might just find my picture! My last post was a week after Natalie was born. She turns THREE in a few months. Yes, the word fail is appropriate here. 

Over the past couple of months some events have happened in our lives that have reminded Sean and I how important our family and friends are. Events that have reminded us how important it is to stay connected even though we live three hours away. Events that remind us that no matter how busy life gets sometimes, it is always important to share the day to day lives of our family with those who love us most. 

So, better late than never, the Baylor Family Blog begins...again.

Natalie's Story, Part 1

On April 28th we were blessed with our little girl Natalie Marie Baylor. Now, almost 3 weeks later, I finally have the kiddos on a schedule and I have a few free minutes to tell you her story. True to Baylor form, she made quite an entrance.

Natalie's timing was actually pretty good. Sean and I were sure she was going to come early. We were thinking a few days either before or after Nathan's birthday on April 17th. My mom was scheduled to arrive on April 18th to visit and help watch Nathan while I was in the hospital. But her flight was canceled due to the volcano and she wasn't able to come until April 25th. Sean and I had no idea what we were going to do with Nathan if I went into labor before Mom got here. We were SO lucky to have her here to help us out!

On the morning of Natalie's birthday, I started having contractions at about 5:30 in the morning. Well, they didn't really feel like contractions, it was just pressure. I thought the pain was just from holding my pee because I didn't want to get out of bed. Nathan woke up very early that morning, 6:15, so I got up and started moving around and the pressure turned into definite contractions. I told Sean, who was still sleeping, that I was having some contractions and that today might be the day. He just said "okay" and went back to sleep. He later told me he thought he was dreaming so that is why he didn't get up. By 7:00, my contractions were about 5 minutes apart, so I went back upstairs to wake up Sean. I told him was having really strong contractions and I needed his help watching Nathan. I think it finally hit him because he shot out of bed and said, "Okay, let me brush my teeth." He was so cute. I think he was still half asleep. By 7:30, my contractions were about 3 minutes apart and very strong. We woke up mom and told her that we were going to the hospital. Looking back,I can't imagine what we would have done without her. Everything happened so fast, we wouldn't have had time to drop Nathan off some where or wait for someone to come over.

The hospital, on a good day, is about 20 minutes away from our house. Of course, we were trying to get into town at rush hour. Our 20 minute trip turned into a 35 minute trip. My contractions were coming very strong and fast at this point. Poor Sean, he was trying to find short cuts and ways to get around traffic and I am squeezing his hand telling him to pay attention to me and to talk to me. We finally arrived around 8:30. I went into the "pre labor" room while Sean went to administration to tell them we were there. Because we do not have German insurance benefits, we are deemed "private" patients so our process was a little different. Sean practically had to swear on his life that we would pay the bill!

While he was gone, the midwife began asking me questions. She noticed that my contractions were pretty strong and about 1-2 minutes apart so she wanted to check to see how far along I was. At 8:30, I was already 5 cm dilated. She looked at me and asked, "Did you just get here? Did you arrive in an ambulance?" I said yes we just arrived and no, we drove there from our home. She looked at me and said, "Oh shit!" I just started laughing!! The midwife was awesome! She asked where my man was. (The German word for husband is man) She said she hoped he got back soon. At about 8:45 they moved me to the delivery room and Sean finally got back. I wish you all could have seen his face when I told him I was already 5 cm dilated and we were going to the delivery room. His eyes got really big! At this point I began asking about the epidural. The midwife then informed me that oh there isn't enough time for that, that will take 2 hours and I am not going to last that long. It was then my turn to say "Oh shit!" The midwife said she would do her best to get the anesthesiologist there. She then check me again and at 9:00, I was 7 cm dilated. I told the midwife, get me the drugs now! The anesthesiologist got to my room around 9:00 and started to get me hooked up. She took forever! She actually had to insert the needle TWICE because the first time she didn't get it in right. While she is doing this, I am having severe contractions and am fighting the urge to push. She was only able to give me the starter medicine. There wasn't enough time to actually hook me up before I delivered. I didn't go numb until AFTER I delivered Natalie.

Sean then realizes he parked in Emergency parking and has to go move the car. The midwife looks at him and says you better be fast. I think Sean felt like he had run a marathon at the end of this day. He literally sprinted across the hospital campus and was completely out of breath when he got back. He was back for about 2 minutes before I started to push. This was at about 9:15/9:20. At 9:32, my beautiful baby girl was born. We did not know what we were having so the moment we realized we had a baby girl, both Sean and I began to cry. She was perfect. She didn't even cry. Sean was able to cut the umbilical cord, which he was not able to do with Nathan, and I was able to hold her the minute she was born. Although Natalie is our second child, our experiences with her were completely different. It was truly amazing. I was in labor with Nathan for almost 24 hours and pushed for 3 hours, so to only be in labor for 4 hours and push for only 10mins felt VERY fast.

Duty calls so Part 2 of Natalie's story will be posted soon!

Pictures of Baby Baylor #2

We have a few family members that are not Facebook addicts like the rest of us so here are a few pictures of me and my big ole belly. Enjoy!

Two Bear E's

Nathan has really developed a liking for strawberries lately. He would probably eat them all day everyday if we would let him. The funniest thing is watching him run into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and demand his two bear e's!

Nate and his ABC's

So I must confess, we are probably the worst bloggers ever. I looked at the last blog entry and noticed that we haven't posted anything since November. Here is a little video clip of Nathan saying his ABCs. Hopefully it will suffice until we can post a proper blog entry!

Wine!!!

Most people don't really think of Germany as a wine country. I mean, let's face it, when you think of wine countries you immediately think of Italy, France, US (California) but Germany doesn't usually come up. However, Germany produces just as much wine as they do Beer and in the southwest of Germany, wine is king.

Today, we traveled to Würzburg which is about 1 1/2 hours East of Weinheim and found that some of the best (But not necessarily the most widely known) wine is produced here. Franconian wine is regarded by German's as the country's best wine, but it is not commonly sold outside of Germany. (Franconia is the region of Germany where Würzburg is located)

The addition to the uniqueness of the wine, the wine bottles themselves are unlike normal wine bottles. The wine from this region is bottled in flat, circular bottles instead of traditional wine bottles. In fact, the bottles are protected by European Union law and only wine producers in this region are allowed to use these bottles.

The wine itself is very good - it is very dry wine with oaky tones. It is very different from the Rieslings that Germany is commonly known for.

This is a picture of the wine bottle -

New videos!!!

Ok, so we haven't posted any videos in quite awhile, mainly because I lost - or temporarily misplaced - the cable to connect the camera to my computer. Wouldn't you know it, it was in the last place that I put it... (hardy har har har).

Anyway, we have video of him from about July on. I think that because of the way I posted them, they go from newest to oldest. Hope you all enjoy.

Nathan learning to jump

In this video Nathan learned to jump (this just happened tonight). I was trying to see something on the top of the book shelf and jumped. The second Nate saw me do that it was like Monkey see, Monkey do - and he started jumping. Cutest thing ever because most of the time his feet don't leave the floor!

Also, there is this new commercial on TV for an HP printer. Towards the end of the song you hear "aye aye aye" for maybe 1 second. Now, the moment that the commercial comes on, all Nathan does is start yelling AYE AYE AYE... So funny!

Nathan singing the Bumblebee song

So Nathan absolutely loves to sing this Bumblebee song that Stephanie taught him. I tried getting him on video making this hilarious face when he gets to the part where you say "Owww it stung me!" Unfortunately each time we get out the camera, he doesn't do it. I get a decent one towards the end though. He has the squishing part down pat though.

Walking in Daddy's Shoes

Looks like Nathan wants to be just like daddy!

Playing with a white T-Shirt at 18mos

Just some funny footage of Nathan

Nathan Learning New Words at 17 mos

Ok, this one really took place at 17 mos. Also, about halfway through Nate learns how to take off his pants... Such an exhibitionist!

Nathan in the laundry Basket at 15 mos

I made a mistake on the intro - this is Nate in Jul at 15 months.

Switzerland and the Herbstmesse

Hi everyone! Yes, it has been yet another 2 months since we last posted anything on our blog - sorry for being such slackers. Since we last posted a lot has happened, naturally. We have been to the doctor a few times and have a couple of pictures of the new baby. I will let Stephanie create a post on this topic with the pictures. But in general, everything is going smoothly and the baby appears to be growing nicely in it's little oven.

It has been a pretty busy couple of months. The summer ended and winter began pretty much simultaneously. I mean, one day it was in the 60's - 70's and the next it was like 32. The temperatures have been pretty cold since then and it is a shame because the trees never really went through a transition. As it turns out, the past couple of days while we were out of town was about the only days where there was color in the forest. Now most of the trees have shed their leaves and we are preparing for the long winter.

The past couple of weeks have been particularly busy. Last week I had to make a week-long business trip to Basel, Switzerland. It just so happened that they were having their annual Autumn Festival (Herbstmesse) that week, so I thought it would be nice if Stephanie and Nate come along. The pictures above are from their trip to Basel! So, with the whole family packed up, we headed to Switzerland. This was the first trip Stephanie and Nathan had made to Switzerland. They spent the time while I was at work wondering around the city visiting the festival and the Zoo! They only spent 1 night with me in Switzerland and while I was sad to see them go, I did sleep much better the subsequent nights!

Although I was working the majority of the time that I was in Basel, I did have some time to get out and enjoy the festival as well. On Thursday night I went along with a few colleagues from work to teh festival. One of them was a good friend of mine from Indianapolis who is also over here for the project. We had a good time walking around the town and enjoying the rides. I will have to post pictures from the ride we rode later - it was insane! I also had the chance to try Indian food for the first time.

Here is a link to all the photos

next up.... Italy!

We're still here....

So, we admit, we have been pretty bad about keeping up on the blog. I think that this was the overwhelming response that we received in Evansville during our home visit.

Since we have been home we haven't really had time to get settled back in. Stephanie's sister and her boyfriend flew over to visit the Friday after we returned and we have enjoyed showing them around our area. They picked a great time to visit too because there has been a festival going on just about every day that they have been here. I think that they have the perception that all we do is have festivals, drink beer, and eat sausage every day.

Earlier last week, we were in the back yard and Ryan discovered some strange little animals roaming around our backyard. It turns out that we have a family of hedgehogs living under our shed! They are the cutest little things. There are 4 babies and a mom. They seem to be harmless and non-aggressive. If you walk up to them, they just freeze and curl up in a ball. I haven't touched one yet, they look pretty intimidating even though I have been told that they are not like a porcupine.

Here are some pictured that I took of them. It will be interesting to see how long they stick around. We will try to do much better about keeping up on our blog with at least a weekly entry. Hope everyone is doing OK.

Nathan Dancing

Not much to say about this post. We woke up this morning and Nathan felt like dancing. Thought you all would enjoy...

Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses

I thought that everyone might enjoy this clip. Isn't he so adorable!

Rouen!

Suffice it to say, Rouen was the best trip that almost never happened. We drive to Rouen to check into our second hotel after leaving the beaches of Normandy. As we arrived in Rouen, without the aid of modern navigation or a decent map of the city, we had quite a difficult time finding the city center and our hotel. Once we were in the greater Rouen area we lost all sense of direction with its winding roads. We had absolutely no idea where we were.


Being the patient soul that I am, I became frustrated very quickly because I had no idea where I was, what direction to go, and none of the streets had street signs, so even if I had a map I would be completely incapable of locating myself on it. So, I did what ever guy dreads to do... I stopped at a convenience store in the middle of a strange city in France and asked for help. It turns out that we were not so far off. The Hotel was located just about a 1/4 of a mile away. So I got back in the car with my bearings straight and headed toward the hotel. Now it is about 8:00 at night and the sun is at just the right angle that I am doing well enough to see the road in front of me with the glare from my windshield. That 1/4 of a mile ended up taking another 45 minutes to navigate after missed turn upon missed turn.



This is why Rouen was the best trip that almost never happened. At this point, my BP is through the roof and I am 2 seconds from getting back on the highway and heading to the one place I know how to get to... HOME! Instead, Stephanie does her best to calm me down and we find the street that we were looking for. It turns out that our hotel is actually very conveniently located if I just knew where I was going, or if I had a GPS.

After the experience at the hotel the night before, my expectations were not very high for this place. After checking in, the receptionist instructed us that we have to go back outside and down the road to the 1st door past the restaurant. I am thinking... here we go again. When we get up to our room I am pleasantly surprised. The room is quite nice, very clean, and one heck of a bargain for 80 bucks a night. Plus the view from our window was spectacular (see the bottom right photo of the cathedral lit up at night). We even got to enjoy a little music from the restaurant below. A little band was playing great musical selections like the Macarena until all hours of the night... seriously.



I had never really heard of Rouen until Stephanie brought it up a week before our trip. It turns out that it has quite some history. Rouen is the capital city of the Normandy region. In the late 1300's the city was hit hard by the bubonic plague and the majority of its inhabitants were wiped out. The city has an incredible number of cathedrals all within a short walking distance of one another. I am not talking small churches either, but rather huge cathedrals. Here are a few pictures of the ones we visited:



































In addition to the impressive cathedrals, Rouen is very well known for its well preserved half-timbered buildings. It is quite impressive to look at these buildings that have endured some 6-700 years. You can tell the years are really beginning to wear on them though because some of the main support beams are starting to bow. The atmosphere with these buildings, the cobbled stone roads, and the lack of automobiles in the city center really makes you feel like you are walking down the streets in the 1400's.

As we continued on our walking tour, one of the points of interest was a courtyard of what is now an art school. The courtyard was used in the 1300's to pile bodies that had died from the plague. To really give the courtyard an erie feeling, the townspeople had carved signs of death in the wooden beams. It kind of felt like the scene of a horror movie.

To end our walking tour we went to the location that Rouen is most well know for - the site at which Joan of Arc was tied to a stake and burned alive for heresy. In the 1400's Joan of Arc led the French to several victories during the Hundred Years War. Her actions during this time led to the coronation of King Charles the 7th. However, some Duke in France had already claimed the thrown, so to undermine the legitimacy of King Charles' rule, he denounced Joan of Arc as a heretic and had her burned at the stake. Today there is a memorial at the site where she was burned and a church has been built in her name.

Continued from below (Read that post first)

... I just realized that the timing of this post is perfect because today, June 6th, is the 65th anniversary of the landings at Normandy.

To continue from below, after leaving Bayeux we headed up to Utah Beach. It is difficult to explain the feeling that you have when you arrive at this location and you are walking on ground that has so much historical significance. The beaches today are quite beautiful and serene. Today Utah beach is essentially a quiet beach front that reminds me a lot of an East Coast beach in the US. Below is a picture of the entrance to the beach. The only building in the area is a museum that has some left over War memorabilia and a memorial to the troops that landed there (also pictured below)

After leaving Utah beach, we drove about 10 miles or so to a section of the coast line that is ideally situated between Utah beach and Omaha Beach. The location is called Ponte du Hoc. It was here that that Germans had built a number of fortifications and placed huge cannons that could reach both Utah and Omaha beaches. Both Stephanie and I really found this site interesting because it has been very well preserved since the war. The land is filled with craters from the bombings and many of the German installations are still in tact. Below is a picture of Stephanie standing in one of the craters and a picture of one of the fortifications. This particular location was not very well protected by the Nazis during the invasion becasue it is situated on a rocky cliffs and they thought that there was no way the Allied forces would attempt to scale the cliffs. In fact, a small group of 90 Army Rangers did just that and were able to take control.

Continuing on our tour of Normandy, we left Ponte du Hoc and arrived at Omaha Beach. Today, Omaha Beach is a residential area. The day we went it was a little chilly with a breeze, but the water was still quite warm, so Nathan got to experience his first steps in the ocean. We spent the time just walking up and down the beach and letting Nathan play in the water. From the ocean looking inland it is easy to imagine the obstacles that the troops must have had when they landed. The beach itself is probably about the depth of 2 football fields and the advantage that the Nazis had on top of the hills explains why more than 500 troops were killed in the first 5 minutes of the invasion.

Our last stop on the beaches of Normandy was the American Memorial Cemetary. The cemetary is situated on a cliff on the edge of Omaha beach. Here it really hits you the price that was paid to liberate Europe from the Nazis. Stepping onto the grounds you immediately see rows and rows of crosses each a burial ground for the men and women that gave their lives. It was of course a very somber moment. It was cut short though because at this point, Nathan had pretty much had all of the sight seeing that he could handle and began to lose it. We decided to let all of the people pay their respects in quite, so we packed it up and headed to the next hotel.

Up next.... Rouen!

Beaches of Normandy

Things around the Baylor household have been pretty busy lately with Sean working crazy hours and Stephanie keeping up with Nathan, so we apologize for not keeping our blog updated. 2 weekends ago Sean had an extended weekend so we decided to take a nice roadtrip to Northern France and the Beaches of Normandy! It turned out to be a little longer of a drive than we expected but a great experience nonetheless. We decided to make a couple of stops along the way becasue Nathan usually starts to lose it around the 3 hour mark in the car. So we stopped in a town called Reims just across the German boarder. There was not much to see in this town, but they had a beautiful cathedral where we learned that all of the Kings of France were crowned after the 1800s. Like most of the towns and cathedrials in France, this one was mostly destroyed in WWII. They rebuilt the church, but all of the stained glass was lost.

We only stayed in Reims long enough to see the church and stretch our legs, then it was time to get back in the car and make the long haul to Caen where we would stay for the night. On our way, we ended up taking a wrong exit and without a GPS system had to use a map to fugure out how to make it the rest of the way using back roads. Somehow, after spending an extra hour or two winding through small French towns and back roads we made it to Caen. I should mention at this point that Stephanie planned the entire trip including booking the hotels and she did so the cost effective way. However, once we arrived to our hotel in Caen we quickly realized why it was only 48 Euro a night. Even by Motel 6 standards, this hotel was quite a sight. However, after driving all day we welcomed the bed - however, neither of us could build up enough courage to use the shower.

The next day we awoke after only a decent night's sleep and headed out for Bayeux, France a little town that is minutes from all of the beaches. Bayeux, like just about every other French town had a beautiful Cathedral at its center. The town itself if absolutely beautiful. The buildings in the entire area do not look like they have changed since the war. They are all made of grey stone and as you are walking around you really feel as though you are taken back in history. Below are some pictures of the city and the church in Bayeux.

I think I hit a limit for this post....