holiday season shopping adventures

in the team pietz household, each year the holiday season brings good food, cold weather, a little downtime, and ...wait for it... shopping.  today we'd like to share a couple of interesting products that we encountered in our shopping travels around town.

first up we have this amazing piece of work.  as lucas and i were trying to get through the second hour of a marathon session at the local marshalls, we came across a larger than life sized unicorn.  (sidebar: i'm not sure you can really classify the size of a unicorn this way.  for all we know "real unicorns" are blue whale sized creatures and this one was a baby.)  well lucas couldn't miss the opportunity to grab the nearest musical instrument, climb up, and just be awesome.

next up, we have this brilliant (clearly in more ways than one) leisure coat.  our fashionista readers will immediately recognize the store from the decor in the background (scroll to the bottom for the answer).  needless to say for those readers, this gaudy garment is not cheap.  but hey, if you're looking for the crown jewel of your disco magician costume, head on over to your local uppity mall and grab one while supplies last.

last but not least, there is this mind blowing "exercise" device.  the local costco was selling the zaaz machine, a vibration-based exercise miracle machine.  apparently you get on this thing (stand, sit, headstand, whatever) and it shakes you to your soul.  in doing so, we were told, you get a great workout.  and the best part...  it can be yours for a mere two thousand bucks!

analysis shows that purchasing this machine can help you instantly lose up to 2 kilograms.  since a dollar weighs about 1 gram.  you can lose 2 kilograms immediately without even using this machine if you pay for it in dollar bills.  math.

of course we had to give it a try...

(answer: anthropologie)

brasil trip 2014

dateline 24jun2014:

international flight today - headed to brasil for three weeks during the world cup.  if you're not much of a soccer fan, the world cup is a huge tournament that happens once every four years.  hosted in brasil this year and soccer (futebol) is kind of a thing there.  also of note, scheduled for an excursion to the beach and this is the first time in a long time that i've been able to take more than a week or so off to go down to brasil and visit the family.  pumped for this trip.

dateline 25jun2014:

landed in são paulo.  flight was good but adriana's in-seat tv didn't work.  i think it was the only one in the whole plane that was broken too.  she's really happy about that!

gustavo's at the airport to pick us up.  so great to see him!  headed up to piracicaba. 

arrived at adriana's folks house.  it's always a good feeling arriving here at our "home away from home" after a long flight with warm hugs and friendly faces here to greet us.  

big lunch at the house with the family, great food and my favorite "dois pengiuns" antarctica beer.  

it's kinda funny the things that people remember... i'm known around these parts as the giant white gringo who eats hot sauce with everything and drinks "dois pengiuns" like its water.  i'll admit that there's a bit of truth to that perception.  now it's time to wind down and get ready for a big day tomorrow.

dateline 26jun2014:

huge day today!  on this day nine years ago gabby was born and changed my life forever.  love you sweetie!  also, there's a little matter of the germany vs usa game. first thing's first...  gotta make a store run for food and drink.  headed to carrefour supermarket, which is not unlike your typical american super walmart.  but ugh!!, no harp beer!  had to settle for bud.  team usa may be in trouble.  

on the way back to the house.  dude in front of us is no sh-t holding down a wardrobe closet in the back of a truck.  apparently bungee cords are for losers (and smart people).  btw- roads here are extremely bumpy and that "lombada" label on the street...  yeah, that means speed bump.  in other unrelated news, some dude fell out of the back of a truck in piracaba brasil today.

20 minutes until game start time!  still on the road headed back to the house.  but wait, we're not headed back to the house.  wtf!?!  adriana wants to take a driving tour of the city.  are you sh-tting me woman?!?  just as i'm about to hijack the steering wheel she comes to her senses, flips a u, and heads back.

arrive 5 minutes before game start.  internet and tv are completely out.  that's it, i'm gonna die!  

thanks delmo for fixing it!

after 90 minutes of nail biting, team usa loses to germany 0-1, but still advance to the knockout round.  it's hard to be happy given the loss.  life goes on.  belgium is up next.  maybe we can get tickets??

gabby's first day of second grade

she was pretty skeptical of the whole advancing a grade thing. at 7 years old, she's already figured out that the work gets harder when your school grade number is larger. however, she was sold when she found out that her 1st grade teacher was changing to 2nd grade too. didn't even have to change classrooms!

floaty gabby

gabby went to the pool today with her class. whille sitting down at dinner she says, "i lost weight." we go, "huh??" she continues, "yeah, now i can float! i used to sink." at that moment, adriana look at each other like ... "hmm, this parenting stuff is really complicated sometimes..."

daddy daughter dance

gabby and i got dressed up and went to the daddy daughter dance put on at my school. it was pretty nice. they had a great spread of treats in the big ballroom. there were probably about 100 people there. it was a really good time...

until i heard the dj say he was putting on electric slide by special request. so picture this: 99 people - daddys (many of them marines in their mess dress) and daughters - all standing there like wtf?!? and one, uno, um dude spinning and clapping to the tunes like it was prom night 1986 all over again. good times.

here are a few pics of us dressed up. lucas was crushed when he figured out he couldn't go to the dance. poor guy...

just because...

it's wednesday. so i came home today to find lucas rocking a new monster suit. why is lucas wearing a monster suit?, you ask. that's the wrong question. you should be asking yourself where your monster suit is. whut!

mr beer

here are some pictures of lucas and dad doing up a batch of belgian white today. man, he's gonna be mad when he figures out he can't have any for a few more years.

we're back...

hello world!


wow, it's been a long time.  this time it's really true.  so, check it out.  we've moved our website (again) back to where it all started: blogspot.  i've been trying to figure out what to do about our .me site for a long time.  you see, apple is discontinuing their .me services soon, so that whole site will just get wiped-out at some point.  i still find it hard to believe apple would just cut out a paid service like that with no backup plan for all the people who have created elaborate websites.  shame on them.  (but don't let that stop you from purchasing your iphones, ipods, and other apple products!)  luckily for us, our old blogspot site was still here with all our old posts.  thanks google!


for as long as it is there, you can still visit our old .me website (http://web.me.com/japietz/Site/home.html) to see the pictures and stuff.  i've already transferred over all of the blogs to this site.  hopefully we can do a better job at keeping things somewhat current!


with all that said, here are a couple of pics from today's trip to dennis the menace park!

one of those rare moments when neither one of them are running around

gabby and lucas showing dennis how to "behave"

the dude relaxing in the shade

fireman in training

this is what awesome looks like!

a firehose recap of the last year

where do i start?...  how about summer 2010.  adriana and the kids go to brasil for the summer.  i packed up the house in germany, got both cars shipped, and joined them for a couple weeks.  we returned to germany for about a week to tie up some things, visit with some friends, and then flew out for good.

fall 2010.  hello california.  brrrrr!  so much for that california heat.  not so much here in monterey.  anyhow...  stayed in lodging (i.e. studio apartment) for a couple weeks which was wayyyy tooo long with two kids.  then we moved temporarily into a townhome down the street.  gabby started kindergarden.  i started school.  our stuff arrived.  filled up said townhome with boxes.  our new car arrived with some new dents.  good times...

winter 2010.  went to oregon for thanksgiving.  too long since we were there last time.  it was awesome to see everybody again!  grand folks from brasil came to visit us for christmas.  townhome + 4 adults + 2 kids + 1,000,000 boxes = time to move again.  so we did.  down the street.

spring 2011.  school ramped up.  took 4 classes.  long days.  i survived.  unpacked all the boxes.  we can now park both cars in the garage.  victory!  weather is warming up.  yay california!

boxscore

miles: 19,946

rental cars: 4

beds slept in: 8

airports: 8

dents in the car: too many

chipotle burritos: 106

boxes: 1,000,000

classes taken: 7

winning: us!

hope you have time to check out the new pictures and the new movie we posted (see links at the top of the page).  also, we’ve been occasionally posting pics to our mobile gallery at:http://gallery.me.com/japietz#100023

until next time...

tschüß winnweiler

checked out of our house in winnweiler today.  after living there for nearly three and a half years it was kinda tough to walk away.  lots of memories there...  but i never made it to the bischoff brewery down the hill in the village.  maybe next time.

any how, we’re looking forward to writing the next chapter of our lives in california.  but first we’re off to brasil for a couple weeks.  a little calm vacation before the school storm!

btw - the landlord took this picture in his office when i was checking out.  he takes pictures of all his tenants so that he can remember who the tenant is.  it’s pretty tough when you have like a thousand rental houses i guess.  

auf wiedersehen!

three year old mess

hi everyone!  it’s been a while since the last post so i wanted to give you all an update on what were doing.  if you’re reading this you probably know that we’re in the middle of moving to the other side of the world.  the last month has been pretty crazy.  and the next two should be about the same.

adriana and the kids took off for brasil this week and left me here all by myself to deal with a, nay many, piles of junk three years in the making.  so with the movers coming in a week and a half i need to ‘organize’ things a bit to ensure things are packed in the right shipment.  (if you’ve ever been through a military move you’re probably familiar with the dynamic of moving your stuff in three to four separate types of shipments.  ...not including the car shipping fiasco!)  in addition to ‘organizing’ stuff, you really need to disassemble anything that can be taken apart (i.e. beds, tables, shelves).  otherwise the screws and bolts will almost certainly get lost, transforming your beautiful furniture into a pile of useless wood.

so my mission for the weekend: #1 clear out the attic (did i say the movers won’t go up there so you have to clear it yourself?  ...good thing we stored all our heavy stuff up there!).  #2 disassemble furniture.  #3 “organize” shipments into three areas.

good times!

well, the weekend is almost over and i’ve succeeded at #1.  the cover picture on this post is our living room.  a lot of that stuff came from the attic (two floor up).  see those boxes?  ...full of books!

this (above) was gabby’s room.  just 24 hours earlier it was full of toys, clothes, and a her bedroom set.  now it’s the transition room that i use to hold stuff i don’t want the movers to touch.

this (above) was lucas’ room.  used to be full of toys, clothes and a bedroom set.  that stuff is still there, but the bed is broken down and half of the attic and most of gabby’s stuff is in there too.  the mover’s are really gonna love this room!  ooops.

victory!  the attic is clear.  what about tasks 2 and 3 you ask?  along the way i managed to disassemble most of stuff that needed it.  still one 500 lb gorilla left: adriana’s closet.  as far as separating the piles...  well the problem with moving all the stuff from your attic into the main part of your house is that all that stuff takes up space.  ...not sure there’s enough room left to organize anything in this house.  

but for now, i’ll just enjoy my clean attic.

baltic tugboat adventures

hi everyone.  we just got back from our baltic sea cruise, with stops in stockholm sweden, tallinn estonia, st. petersburg russia, copenhagen denmark, and kiel germany.  okay, so the title is a little misleading.  it wasn’t exactly a tugboat.  more like a 16-deck commercial cruise liner.

we had a good time seeing some places we wouldn’t have otherwise taken the time to see.  but for all the frills and luxury of the ship the kids kept us on our toes and firmly grounded in the reality of parenting two little ones.

overall we were surprised at the places and things we wound up liking over other places.  we really liked tallinn for its almost medieval aura combined with the remnants of a former soviet state.  we also liked copenhagen for its seagoing charm, beautiful scenery, and vibrant city.  on the other hand we weren’t so high on stockholm or st. petersburg.  we found both to be overrated and over-priced.

a day into the trip i decided to record a twitter-esque catalog of events.  it’s a little long and random, but so was the trip.  here’s how things went down:

(note: boarded the boat on 5/16 at about 4:00pm)

5/17 8:00pm - bought a hello kitty notebook to catalog our trip.

5/17 8:25pm - captain’s gala, free booze on the 6th deck...jackpot!

5/17 9:30pm - in the theater watching the nightly show.  just saw a performer sit on her own head!

5/18 11:57am - sitting on the tour bus in stockholm.  pack of indians, from india, trying to figure out the difference between blue and yellow (bus lines).  7-11 on the street corner.

5/18 12:00pm - teenagers in the park playing duck-duck-goose.

5/18 12:10pm - still on the bus.  just as we are driving down a street full of big name fashion import stores and a girl in a miniskirt on a bike rides by, audio tour says “they” expect fashion to be sweden’s next major export...hmmm.  lucas fell asleep.  bus driver helps out the indians with the color chart.

*retro note - getting on the cruise ship.  two-thirds of the crew is from brasil.  ...got the hook-up!

5/18 12:15pm - one of the indians accidentally got off the bus at a red light.  i think she’s lost.  international incident coming.

*retro note - saw a do not poop or pee on the church sign in kiel.  need to remember to take a picture when we get back.

5/18 1:05pm - still on the bus.  lucas woke up.

5/18 2:00pm - eating lunch at a swedish coffee shop.  cinnamon roll tastes like cloves.  still pretty good.

5/18 3:00pm - just got to the bus stop to head back to the ship.  next one leaves at 3:15.  50 min bus ride to the port.  boat leaves at 4:00.  crap!

5/18 3:10pm - running to the cruise liner bus stop to catch another bus.  missed it.  double crap!!

5/18 3:13pm - grabbing a cab to the port.  he says it’ll cost 290 krone.  i have no idea what that means.

5/18 3:45pm - made it, 370 krone later.  still don’t know what a krone is.

5/18 8:00pm - sitting at dinner.  lucas is pounding down soda.  ice cream on the way.  it’s gonna be a long night.

5/18 8:38pm - on the very “aft” of the ship looking at the baltic sunset over several small islands.  amazing!

5/19 8:21am - woke up.  boat should be docked in tallinn etsonia.  can’t tell.  no windows in the room.  it’s a cave.  lucas hit his head already.  that’ll leave a mark.

5/19 11:32am - walking through tallinn.  got a medieval feel to it.  definitely russian.

5/19 1:24pm - eating lunch at the “beer house” in tallinn.  awesome beer menu.  food kinda sketchy.  fried pigs ear?!?  lucas wants a drink...

5/19 1:36 - lucas is out cold.  that’s what fried garlic bread and a mouth full of bh premium will do to a 1-year old.

5/19 2:25 - standing outside waiting for the girls to come out of another “crap you don’t need” store.  toyota across the street has zip ties holding the hub caps on - estonian style.

5/19 2:30pm - yet another “crap you don’t need store”...  no fish allowed in there...

5/19 2:40pm - nice porsche parked on the side of the road.   pimped out with sound system in the back - estonian style.

5/19 8:30pm - just finished our nightly 5-course dinner.  gabby tells me, “wow man, you ate like 5 dinners.  you must be starving!”  lucas found the internet cafe.  he wants to send an email.

5/19 9:36pm - at the show.  dude tap dancing.  so foggy i can’t verify his feet are even moving.  i think he’s on drugs.

5/19 9:41pm - still at the show.  3 dudes in pleather.  holy gayness batman!

5/20 11:29am - standing on the 15th deck of the ship waiting for our st petersburg tour to start at 2:00.  big city.  lots of smog.  old lady on the pool deck needs a bigger bathing suit.  ugh!

5/20 2:19pm - on the tour bus.  smells like cigarettes and vodka.  our tour guide looks like michael jackson in a skirt.

5/20 2:28pm - michael jackson says port was made from a landfill.  30 sunny days per year here.  this is one of them.

5/20 2:35pm - michael jackson says, “russia = bad roads + fools”.  wow!

5/20 4:32pm - back on the bus.  got some matryoshka dolls.  good thing they took credit cards.  left the cash in the room.  adriana is jumping for the camera.

5/20 4:40pm - michael jackson says pushkin (russian writer) was killed in a duel by a guy named dantes.  gabby, “he was killed by a dentist?!?”

5/20 5:32 - building on fire on the horizon.  random.  standing in front of the church on spilled blood.  crazy!

5/20 9:16pm - show starting.  lucas going nuts.  take him outside to calm down.  amazing russian islands passing by.  get back into the theater.  michael jackson is doing thriller.  what is it with mj today?  he’s everywhere.

5/21 3:45pm - spending today at sea.  sitting on the deck wrapped up because it’s a little chili today.  lucas staggering around like a drunk pirate.

5/21 8:25pm - at the disco club at the back of the boat.  gabby has a kids disco pj party.  random.  view from the back: nothing but ocean all around.  cool.

5/22 7:57am - woke up in copenhagen.  weather is pretty foggy.  kinda cool.  last night was pretty rough.  the fog horn was blowing all night.  i felt like i was on a tugboat.

5/22 12:45pm - just walked through copenhagen.  what an amazing city.  eating lunch at the “hollywood cafe”.  food kinda sketchy.  beer is awesome.

5/22 6:47pm - back on the boat.  there was a samba parade in copenhagen as we walked back trough the city.  most of the women had next to nothing on.  they should have worked out more over the winter.  ugh!  sitting at dinner now.  20+ windmills out the window in the middle of the baltic sea.  weird.

5/23 8:20am - eating breakfast in the ship in kiel, germany.  it’s been a long trip.  it’ll be nice to be home.

*retro note - yesterday in copenhagen we had to make an emergency diaper stop.  apparently their credit card machine only accepts magic danish cards.  we didn’t have danish krone.  what is a krone?  long line behind us at the register.  the store clerk spoke zero english.  oops!

5/23 9:24am - waiting to get off the boat.  that was supposed to be at 9.

5/23 6:05pm - after 7 days at sea and 12 hours of driving, we are at home...