Day 3 on the alien planet.

Brycen sat straight up in bed this morning and told me, "Daddy went on a choo-choo ride to work!" I agreed and then he curled up and went back to sleep. Left me scratching my head too.

Speaking of Daddy, I asked him if he had read any of my blog posts recently. He hadn't (which I knew since we only have one computer here) and I usually have him read them before posting to check for errors and so he quickly scrolled through just to see how much he needs to catch up on and replied, "Holy cow!" Yes...I wasn't kidding honey when I said I wasn't sleeping much these days...ha ha.

Brycen has found a new favorite spot to play with his blocks.

The balcony is one of my favorite places too. I have always wanted to live somewhere that had a balcony. I love being able to sit out there and watch the people go by.

The clear window area (right in front of Brycen in the picture) is perfect for Brycen because it allows him to look over the edge without having to be actually leaning over the edge. A few times after bath and at diaper time, he has escaped (diaper less) and I find him looking out the windowed section. Good thing we're on the 5th floor so let's just hope someone wasn't looking up at those moments...

He must've slept really well last night because he saw me taking pictures and said, "cheese". And then thanked me for taking his picture....(??)

I started the movie, "Cheaper by the Dozen" with him yesterday and finished it today (hence the blog post title). He might be officially out of the "Cars" stage because he chose this movie over it and was very against putting "Cars" on.

He loved the movie and giggled several times. At the part where they pull pranks on Hank, he said, "Oh, NO! Ouchie" (as he fell into the pool). And the end was his favorite part. He was very concerned when and why Mark was crying and loved the big family hug "Mommy and Daddy hugging baby (12 of them to be exact)".

All meanwhile, he ate all my grapes WITH the skin on! It turns out, I bought some really yummy grapes last night (sometimes it's hit and miss). He had recently started, randomly demanding his skin being peeled off his grapes (after eating them with skin on for over a year). It drove us nuts but we did it so that he would continue to eat grapes. But these grapes were so yummy today, I refused to peel off the skin because honestly, I didn't mind if he just let me eat them all :)

After watching me pop one after one into my mouth, he couldn't take it anymore (made sure I wasn't looking) and secretly popped one into his mouth and... he soon claimed the entire bowl.

Loved finding Daddy's shirt after bathtime. He recognized almost all his upper case letters (and pointed out that there were multiple "Es" "Us" "Ns" and "Gs" and then needed help on the lower cased ones. He would ask, "what's this one?" and then "Oh, more e's!" (when I told him the lower case "e" was in fact an e). He then said, "I did it!" when all done.

Caught him playing out here several times this morning.

Getting rather comfortable with this bus transportation. Wanted/needed his own row.

While in Utah (still need to blog about it), we went to "This is the Place" park and Brycen absolutely fell in love with the train rides and pony rides (you can ride Nays? He LOVED the concept) he was able to go on and has asked me every morning since if we are going on the "green car choo-choo" and "Nay" with Uncle Isaiah today. So when he spotted the horse drawn carriage today, he screamed, "Ride nay!" Still having trouble explaining that we can't ride every "Nay" we see, to him.

Since Brycen woke up earlier today (9:45), I never got to plan out our day so we hopped onto a bus we have never been on to see where it would take us. Brycen at one point said, "All done bus" and we hopped off.

Cool little section of town, lots of fancy buildings. Not sure if any are too important since there weren't any signs to read but I loved walking around and we did lots of it.

Berlin in a way reminds me alot of Provo (BYU) in that there is alot of construction.

We came across this particular street where there were some signs to read. Apparently, once stood a mansion on this property that Hitler lived in for a few years. The property also used to contain the bunker Hitler killed himself in. The mansion (the Reich Chancellery) was badly damaged during the Second World War (like so many other things, did you know 55 million died during WWII? I need to brush up on my history) and the ruins were cleared away roughly 30 years later for housing developments that now stand there.

His caterpillar speed was the perfect speed to be able to read the signs. ...in between constantly needing to tell him to stay away from the road.

And he actually requested his picture be taken next to every sign. "Cheese!" I checked his forehead several times to see if he was feeling okay. This picture was by far, my favorite one.

Part of the Berlin Wall. Didn't realize how tall it was!

In the once stood mansion's garden area, now lies this:

A memorial to the Murdered Jews. Somewhere I wanted to visit but haven't found the time to necessarily pin point in on the map so it was perfect to randomly stumble across it. I also found it very fitting to have it on the same grounds Hitler once lived and killed himself. The memorial had an information center underground with pictures and stories but since no kids under 14 are allowed, I'll have to come back with Bryce again soon.

A bear we came across while heading back to the bus. He first wanted to hold it's hand.

And then hug. I think he misses having friends other than Mommy and Daddy.

Since I figured Brycen was so good today with picture taking and all the walking, he deserved a treat. He picked out a donut from Dunkin Donuts (I figured it was one of the safest bets that they spoke English...yes, I'm still a chicken). I probably should've checked the price on it first though because two donuts cost me near 4 American dollars (3-4 Chocolate croissants worth). Anything American over here is crazy expensive....but being able to read and understand the signs in the store was nice.

We found the American section of a grocery store on Monday and a box of Mac and Cheese (bo-bo, not name brand) was 2.60 in Euros! Roughly $3.60 in America! Bryce's mom was complaining while in Oregon how the price of bo-bo mac n' cheese had almost doubled to $.49 lately...I think we'll stick to the European food while in Europe.

The donuts weren't even that great but the lady that helped us in Dunkin Donuts was very friendly and knew English (and German, spoke fluently to the next customer) very well. Like carry on a conversation (no accent even) worthy. So nice to talk to someone other than Bryce and Brycen. Very friendly. I left smiling...despite the price.

Sure hope that donut was good!

Other observations today:

1. Almost everywhere I went, there was someone either walking in front of me or sitting behind me that was speaking English (not necessarily American, some had some pretty heavy accents)! It felt like I was in an English bubble...everywhere I went. Kinda refreshing to be around others and hear little pieces of their conversation and know that they weren't talking about us (something I always wonder whenever someone is speaking German, looking at me).

2. There seems to be a large amount of women over here that walk around the city in high heels! High, high heels. I can understand if they're headed to work but I would still do the sneaker, change shoes at work kinda thing (the kind of thing I see happen in U.S. cities). And if they're not headed to work or church on a Wednesday...hm, I seemed to like this word alot lately...but I think that it's just a bit crazy....and my feet ache thinking about it.

3. Their emergency vehicles make the same noise you can hear the emergency vehicles on "The Sound of Music". Maybe it's because I can hear them all night long but I find the noise very very annoying-it's more like a muffled siren. I would probably feel the same if I lived in any city though.

4. Almost everything (store wise, not restaurants) closes at 5 (or close to it) here. Finding groceries in the city last Friday night around 9pm (after our 5 hour nap) was a challenge. I totally agree with the need to get home to families and such but I do wonder what the people that work all day do for shopping. Saturday is available but not Sunday (which I love).

5. So, we have been looking into buying a fan (for a couple days now) and I followed my usual routine when we want to buy something and I googled the nearest "Wal-mart". Apparently, Wal-mart came and failed in Germany a few years back. Germans are pretty loyal to their specialty stores and don't enjoy having other people bag their groceries. I'm sure there are more reasons...but those are the ones I can remember.

Still haven't come across the "fan" store. The dog accessory store is next door though. Very fancy beds, bags, and collars are available, in case you were wondering.

I also realized that I have roughly 20 pictures left of storage space on my camera! Since I'm not a fan of "deleting" pictures, I'm slightly terrified how long it will take to find the "SD card" store. It took days to locate SIMs cards so we could use our phones (which we just found last night).

Hopefully, my camera will get us through tomorrow!