Day 2 (or should it be Day 1 again??) - Charleston/ Germany

After an evening of assuring Jemma that we would really be going to Germany, we all woke up early and our very kind neighbor drove us to the airport at 7:45!  We walked in (in the same clothes that I had picked for us to wear the day before!) and were actually able to get on a plane!!  I just want to go back and say that Jemma is an AWESOME traveler!  She sat in an airport for over 4 hours the day before and was so good.  Anyhoo, we got on the plane and were on our way to Atlanta!  We got to Atlanta and thankfully there were beautiful blue skies.  I don't know if any of you with children know of this wonderful thing called a portable DVD player, but I HIGHLY recommend it!  A thumb also helps!


Next thing you know, they are calling us to get on our plane to Germany!!!  Prayers of thanks went up to our Lord above!  We all settled in and thankfully the Best Husband in the World (BHW) booked the middle row of four seats so we had an extra seat in the middle so Jemma could stretch out.  Perfect!  And to kick it up one more notch of wonderfulness, he knew that some planes had plugs under the seat so we were able to plug in the DVD player!!!!  Who is the best?????  He is!!!!!!!

Right after a yummy meal of pasta on the plane, Jemma promptly fell asleep and sleep for about 2 hours. When she woke up she was happy to color, watch movies and read books.  I love this kid!  We knew she needed to sleep a bit more so we changed her into some comfy jammies and made her a bed.  She didn't fall asleep quite as easily, but finally did for about another 2 hours.  Tom slept like a champ (of course he claims he didn't!) and I did my usual.  Sat there and tried to pretend that I was asleep.  It was hard to sleep when the drunk German in front of you is talking so loud I am sure the pilots could hear him through the closed metal door!  Two people asked him to be quiet and he finally got the hint.   I still didn't sleep, but that is the norm for me on overseas flights.  I think I know that I need to sleep therefore, I can't!

Breakfast came and Tom and I started packing up the goods while Jemma continued to sleep.  She woke up right before we landed.  I even let her walk through the airport in her fleece jammies.  Looked like an outfit if you ask me!  We got our luggage and everything was there except for the car seat!  Now, I actually packed a bag to get us through a night as we seem to always end up losing a bag, but a car seat! I started to have a minute of panic and then just tried to tell myself that surely a car rental would rent a car seat.  About that time as I am in line to report it, a man in blue overalls comes walking through he airport with the car seat!  The Lord was watching over us on this day!  We picked up our car and we were on our way!!!

Our first stop was Heidelberg.  This is where I always took people on the first day to try to keep them awake.  It was snowing as we drove there and there was about 3 or 4 inches on the ground.  We arrived at the castle and Jemma was surprised to see how big it was, but she was more interested in the snow!  We walked up to an open park area to the left of the castle and let her play in the snow.  We didn't really have much choice as that was what she had in mind!  She made a snow angel and ran through the snow with her loud girly scream!  We said it was time to go in and she said she just wanted to play in the snow.  I tried my powers of persuasion with the whole, "It is an old old castle that kings and queens used to live in!" and "There are lots of old beautiful things that kings and queens once had!", but it didn't work.  She informed us that she really just wanted to play in the snow!  So... we all played in the snow and had an awesome snowball fight!  I was thinking that this might be a really cheap way to tour Europe!

Our first shot of the castle!  We had Jemma bundled in tights, long johns (how I found these in January in South Carolina, I will never know!), fleece pants, undershirt, turtleneck, shirt, scarf, coat, mittens, and hat!  It was like being back in Michigan!

More to come!