May 2, 2008 - May 4, 2008

This weekend, Savannah, Tim and I took a trip down to Garmisch. Garmisch is a German resort town in the Alps, not far from Germany's highest peak, the Zugspitze. Savannah's unit was sponsoring a marriage retreat for couples in her unit, so it was free to take the bus down there, stay in the hotel, eat, and take the bus back. Over the whole weekend, we had about six hours of classes, which meant we had a whole slew of time on Saturday afternoon to do whatever we wished. Savannah and I chose to take Tim up the Kramerspitze, the mountain in the background of this first picture.

We took Tim in the backpack also featured in this first picture and he did remarkably well- He only complained about being in the backpack when we weren't moving anywhere. Otherwise, he spent a lot of time sleeping and looking around. We put an adult-sized ballcap on his head because the PX didn't sell any baby-hats, but he dealt with it well.

The family made it about 3/4ths of the way up Kramerspitze- We would've continued on, but Savannah and I only had tennis shoes and the trail became snow-covered. Carrying Tim, having little traction on a mountainside is a bit too precarious. Nonetheless, we had a great time.

The second picture was taken on the way down- We had put Timmy's coat on him because it was getting cold at the top. Notice the only one without a coat on is also the one carrying the heavy load! Behind us in the picture is the base of Zugspitze. At this point we were still rather high up- near the bottom of the picture you can see some tiny buildings from the outskirts of Garmisch.

Other than hiking up the mountain Saturday afternoon, Savannah and I took Timmy to downtown Garmisch on Friday night- they were holding their spring festival. The beer was good. During the marriage retreat sessions, Timmy was in childcare (free!) next door- his first time being around other children for any length of time. The babysitters said he did real well- Apparently he slept most of the time. This is no suprise, since he slept very little both nights. Friday night, Timmy woke up at 30-minute intervals. Saturday night was a little better, but he still woke up a half-dozen times. Not surprisingly, he slept most of the trip home today (Sunday).

The third picture was taken Sunday just before leaving Garmisch. Timmy seemed pretty happy playing in the grass. He wasn't outside for long, so don't give me a hard time about him being without a hat!

Timmy still isn't crawling, walking or talking, though he's getting ever closer to the first of those three every day. I've started some baby sign-language, but he hasn't caught on to that yet, either. We have many, many pictures from up (and down) the mountain, so ask if you would like some!