Germany!!!!!

Yes! I'm going to Germany!!!! I'm so excited! About the trip that is......NOT the plane ride.....  I keep thinking that after torturing ourselves with 2 babies on a 10 hour plane ride, then the reward will be even better and grander than imagined. Then, like in the movies, after such a horrifying experience we will emerge even closer as a family......hey, a girl can dream. ;)

So my manically organized side has taken over. I've made a tour book for all the places we'll be exploring. It's complete with pictures, maps, and even common German phrases. I kid you not, it's 117pgs long. Manic..... I know.  It's great though- I found this awesome website (and OK, I know I'm really far behind all you new age techies) called www.wikitravel.org. LOOOOOVE IT!  It has the history of each place, places to see, things to do, traditional foods you have to try, drinks, etc, etc, etc.....  It is like wikipedia, where you have to be aware that people fill everything in so it might not all be accurate; however I found it to be totally interesting (yes, I stayed up until midnight last night reading about everywhere we're going.) Then, I found myself filling in more and more places to go and see into our itinerary.......we don't really have to eat, do we?  I know we'll probably be scratching off alot of places as our 2 preggo women and 3 toddlers in the group start whining to go slower; but so far we plan to rent a van to travel and explore Southern Germany, Northern Switzerland, and Northern Austria. So EXCITING!!!!!  (yes, alot of capitol letters and exclamation points in this post...) ;)

I also am bringing my trip journal with me.  Made me start to reminisce about my Grandma Dollar.  She got me started on my first trip journal.  I still have it and can remember her telling me about ideas of things I can write about along the trip.  I still bring one with me on big trips to make sure I don't forget any detail.  I can't wait to get my kids starting on their journals too.  I think it really helped to fuel my love of writing.

We leave Monday; May 3rd and will return Thursday; May 13th.  I can't wait to write all about it!