Getting Around Germany by Train

Germany has an amazingly efficient and expansive country-wide rail system. You can go basically anywhere in the country quickly and cost effectively. Your public transportation options include high speed ICE trains, regional trains, S-bahn, U-bahn, Trolley/Street cars, and city buses. Germany also has long distance buses but they are not as efficient as train travel and I have never utilized them so I won’t be discussing them here.

Deutsche Bahn (I’ll be referring to it as DB now) is the nationwide company that runs the German train system. With the exception of city metro and buses they control city SBahns, Regional, and ICE trains. I found it really nice that one company runs everything because everything is streamlined and easy to navigate from city to city. The DB navigator smartphone app is an absolute necessity for getting around Germany! You can choose any starting and ending location in the country and it will show you every public transportation option available to get you there! For example if I’m in Berlin and o want to go from my hotel room to the Natural History museum I just plug in the two locations (you can even select points on the map if you don’t know the name or address) and it will pull up how to get there like “walk to ubahn station ____, take U6 to ____ transfer to U4 to ____”. It’s so helpful and very easy to read!

Let’s start with ICE trains because they require the most planning. ICE trains are very very fast trains that travel long distances. Most of their routes are about 4-5 hours long but they make many stops along the way. Seat reservations are not required, but popular routes and times will be very full and you don’t want to get stuck standing in a doorway for 4 hours! Seat reservations for ICE trains can be made 3 months in advance on the DB website. ICE trains have a first class section and a second class section. We chose first class for all our train travels so I cannot speak on behalf of the regular cars but I did walk through one and it seemed to be perfectly suitable. The seats and foot room was smaller and more people crammed into one car but otherwise just fine. I mainly chose the first class cars because you can get quiet enclosed rooms (perfect for families with children so you don’t disrupt the entire car!) and seats of 2 or 4 with tables between them.

We took ICE trains from Munich to Köln, Köln to Nuremberg, Nuremberg to Munich, and Munich to Berlin. Three of those four trips were about 4 hour long rides that went across the country. ICE trains are a great way to take in all the beautiful scenery and get to your destination in a timely fashion while still allowing you to take potty breaks whenever you want and relax.

ICE trains have bathrooms in every car much like airplane bathrooms. There is a restaurant car that will have drinks, pizza, sandwiches, snacks, etc. There’s overhead bin space above each seat and also luggage racks for large suitcases at the back of each car. Some cars are equipped for bike and stroller storage and those will be marked with signs.

Buying tickets for ICE trains is very easy, they can be purchased on the DB website. Since DB runs ICE, regional, and Sbahn services I highly recommend buying a multi day ticket that covers all 3 if you plan on using multiple lines during your time in Germany. We were in Germany for 15 days so I bought a 15 day ticket

When you are in the main train station read the boards or check the DB app to see which platform your ICE train will be leaving from. When you are at your platform and your train arrives the outside of each car will be numbered so you just find your assigned car number. You should have either a picture of your reservation or you can view it on the DB app. It will tell your car number and the seats you have reserved. One in your assigned train car the seats are numbered above them like an airplane. There is a small digital screen by the seat number that will let you know what legs of the journey the seat is reserved for. For example if you are traveling from Munich to Berlin and the digital sign says “Munich-Nuremberg” then that seat is reserved until Nuremberg then free. It the digital sign doesn’t say anything then the seat is not reserved. A DB staff member will check your ticket at least once, maybe a couple times during your journey.

I have no personal experience with regional trains in Germany, but they’re operated by DB so your DB ticket works for them too. You just need to find the correct train you want, platform number, and hop on.

Metro/subway/Sbahn/Ubahn are a little more complicated but super easy once you figure them out. The DB app will be your best friend with what trains to take and what transfers to make. Sbahn trains are operated by DB so your DB ticket will cover them. They are above ground subway lines. Underground subway lines are called UBahn. You can buy tickets for them at little ticket machines at the stations. Nobody ever checks tickets on S&U trains so they simply rely on people to do the right thing.

S & U trains have 2 lines that make the same stops going in opposite directions. It is critical that you make sure you are on the correct side of the platform or else you will go the wrong way. For example if you need to take U4 you go down into the U4 station and read the “map” posted on the wall. The “map” will list every stop that U4 makes. You need to find the correct U4 map to your destination and enter that platform. There will be 2 sides to U4 so you have to find which side is yours. It sounds confusing but it’s really not once you’re in the station.

S&U trains are usually very crowded. There are seats but you will most likely have to stand. Be sure to keep an eye on the screen inside the train that shows which stop is next because you will have to press a button to open the door to your train car when you get to your stop. The train stops and the doors open and close in a matter of a minute so be prepared to get on and get off very quickly.

City buses are not part of the DB system but they’re very easy to use and the DB app will also show you bus routes available to your desired destinations. Buses work the same as the subway system. You can buy tickets from kiosks at the bus stops and you just hop on when your desired bus comes. The driver may look at your ticket if you get on at the front of the bus but most likely no one checks the ticket.

After WW2 Germany spent a lot of time and money building their public transportation system and it is truly awesome in my opinion and I can’t same the same for many other countries including my own. Trains and stations are very clean, well kept, and user friendly.

Munich Germany December 2019

We arrived in Munich on December 26 to find that the city was all but shut down. Apparently this is called the second day of Christmas and is still celebrated as a national holiday just like Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Who knew? We had planned on visiting some of the museums and monuments in the city that day but instead found ourselves looking at the architecture and I was just happy we found somewhere to eat that was open! This was a German Beer House where we had traditional food consisting of pretzels, goulash and bratwurst.

With rain in the forecast we thought it would be best to find some things to do indoors so the next morning we headed for the German National Museum. We stripped for breakfast at a cafe on the corner right across the bridge from the museum and I highly recommend it! The museum itself is massive spanning several stories. It’s filled with nautical history, aviation history, space exploration, a physics lab, metals history, a children’s museum, and even an entire floor dedicated to the history of coffe complete with a coffee shop! We tinkered through the museum for the entire morning and had lunch in the on site restaurant.

We spent the rest of that day dodging the rain and sightseeing. We were staying in a great Airbnb apartment right in the middle of the city center in Marienplatz. The first floor of our apartment was part of a large pedestrian only shopping center.

One of the only things I wanted from Germany was a real cuckoo clock. I did some research and found Max Krug, a well known clock shop in Munich that sells real handmade in the Black Forrest cuckoo clocks. They had so many clocks to choose from I was completely overwhelmed. I did know that I wanted a mechanical clock that had to be wound and not a battery powered one because I wanted it to be traditional and authentic. I should warn that these clocks are not cheap. They are hand carved, hand painted, and hand assembled. There’s so many minute details on each clock the craftsmanship is amazing. I chose a mid level clock and it still cost close to €1,000.

I was also able to find a beautiful nutcracker in the Max Krug shop and that was another one of my must have souvenirs.

We had dinner that night at Pasta e Basta which was the sweetest little Italian restaurant. The staff was so friendly with the kids, even MM who doesn’t like anyone, hugged the owner before we left!

Our first impression of Munich was rocky because nothing was open and we couldn’t even find places to eat, but once the city came back to life and we got used to our surroundings we really loved Munich! We left Munich by high speed ICE train back to Berlin to catch a flight home the next day.

Nuremberg Germany December 2019

Nuremberg is a cute town right in the heart of Germany. Probably most famous now for it Nazi history and the home of the post-WW2 Nuremberg trials. We chose Nuremburg as our location to spend Christmas because it’s also world famous for its huge Christmas market!

Spread out all across the city center is a Christmas market for all ages offering food, drinks, rides, toys, crafts, and goods of every kind. Complete with horse drawn carriage rides and live music. Don’t forget to try some roasted chestnuts and mulled wine!

We picked up the kids Christmas presents from vendors here and the kids were smitten with them on Christmas morning. Rhett got traditional German toys, a wooden fire truck and ambulance. The 3 girls got the most precious hand made teddy bears. The woman who made them was so sweet to us! She helped us find the perfect outfits for each bear for the girls while they slept in the carriers. The bears are made from moleskin, stuffed with sheep wool, and hand sewn.

Nuremberg has several beautiful churches and of course a medieval castle that still stands with a large part of the old city wall boasting beautiful views of the city.

We really wanted to go to the Nazi rally grounds where Hitler would host his huge Nazi party rallies and also where prisoners were sorted and sent to their assigned concentration camps. Unfortunately it was closed from the Christmas holidays which in Germany is celebrated for 3 days from December 24-26.

We stayed at a great Airbnb apartment right by the main train station. It was perfect for big families with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms and was very reasonably priced. Leaving Nuremberg we took a very quick ICE train to Munich.

Köln Germany December 2019

After our leisurely train ride from Berlin we made it to Köln around noon. Köln has really easy to use public transport, but we had accumulated so much stuff in Berlin we were over loaded with bags and decided to just take a taxi to our apartment.

We had a really amazing airbnb apartment in Köln. It was on the outskirts of the city center in a really adorable neighborhood that was full of amazing restaurants!

After getting settled in to our apartment and dropping our bags off our first order of business was finding the post office to ship all our stuff from Berlin home! There Deutsche Post office right down the street and even though no one in there spoke English, we managed to figure out how to mail our stuff home. Köln was one of the few places we went in German my where not many people spoke English, but they were by far the friendliest and most welcoming!

Our apartment was located in Rudolphplatz which had its own little Christmas marker where we spent our first evening exploring and eating sweets for dinner!

The first floor of our apartment was a wonderful little cafe called Salon Schmitz where we had breakfast every morning. It was a little quirky in that you ordered your food at the counter 2 doors down and then found a table and ordered drinks in the main restaurant. Every morning we had lattes, bacon, pancakes, toast, fried eggs, and chorizo & cheese scrambled eggs. They also hand squeeze fresh orange juice right there for you!

Köln is most famous for its cathedral which houses the Shrine of the Three Kings. The remains of the Three Wise Men who came to the Virgin Mary after Jesus’ birth have been housed in many places, but were ultimately given to the Archbishop of Köln in 1164 where they have remained to this day. Construction of the magnificent Köln cathedral to house the tomb began in 1248 but was not completed until 1880, it was however still built by its original plans. The Shrine of the Three Kings has made Köln cathedral one of the largest Christian pilgrimage sites in Europe. It is an intricately detailed gold sarcophagus kept in the very back center of the cathedral. The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is absolutely worth further research.

Right outside the cathedral entrance is what’s left of the city wall and main gate. The wall dates back to the early 1500s and once protected the city.

Germany is covered with Christmas markets from the beginning of December through Christmas Eve. You can find one on every neighborhood square lined with booths of local craftsmen selling their goods and food. The Christmas markets are full of stuff for kids too. Carnival rides, Ferris wheels, ice skating rinks, live reindeer and Santa Clause himself!

I never dreamed we would end up at a Zoo in Germany, but everyone had great things to say about the Köln zoo and a lot of the exhibits are indoors so when we were faced with a very rainy morning that’s where we went and we were not disappointed! We ended up spending way longer there than we had intended but it was worth it! The best part about the zoo? They had a raccoon exhibit! It was the funniest thing I have ever seen and I never would have thought other parts of the world would find our nuisance trash pandas intriguing! The Köln zoo is huge! It has tons of amazing playgrounds, snack shacks, a restaurant, and amazing exhibits. I’ve never been so close to penguins before as they are there! You can literally touch them, although it’s frowned upon.

Leaving Köln involved the most amazing train ride down the Rhein river toward Nuremburg. The Rhein river is dotted with picturesque old German villages, grape vineyards and Medieval castles on hilltops. There are river cruises out of Köln that will take you down the river to see the landscape but they didn’t have the best reviews so we decided to skip them since we knew our train ride out of town would take us down the same path. We took a high speed ice train from Köln to Nuremburg that was about 3.5 hours long and beautiful every minute of the trip!

Köln was by far our favorite German city. The people were so friendly, the whole atmosphere of the city was laid back and welcoming. We were in the cutest neighborhood and had amazing meals all at restaurants we just randomly walked into on our street.

Berlin, Germany December 2019

After a whirlwind of a process trying to get to Germany we finally touched down in Berlin at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night in mid December. Berlin has an awesome public transportation system, but Tegel airport is pretty far out of the city center. For our family of 6 with 4 of those being 4 years old and under, getting to the nearest bus stop that late at night with 4 toddlers was not worth my sanity. Instead we opted to walk 5 steps out the door to a waiting taxi. One of the things I loved most about Germany’s public transportation is that their taxis have car seats and booster seats! Yep, you read that right! Germany’s taxis are all ran by one company, I think it may even be controlled by the government. Anyway, they have convertible car seats and booster seats. We obviously needed a van to fit 6 people and never had a problem finding one with multiple car seats! I had read this ahead of time but wasn’t sure if it was really true or not. I’m here to tell you now I have experienced it myself and their taxis really do have car seats. We had to use a taxi 3 times during our trip and 2 of those times were in different cities. Each time we were able to find a van with multiple car seats for us. This was a huge relief since we didn’t have to lug all the kids car seats with us! Our trip to and from the airport to the city center was €31 and it was the same price when we went back to the airport 2 weeks later.

We spent 3 nights in Berlin in an Airbnb apartment right in the heart of the city between the popular Potsdamer Platz and Alexander Platz. We were in walking distance to Checkpoint Charlie, the Brandenburg Gate, The Memorial for Murdered Jews, pretty much everything you want to see in Berlin we could walk to it.

Day 1 we walked across the street for breakfast at Hashtag Coffee Shop. It was a hip little cafe right outside our apartment. The staff spoke great English! Actually, pretty much everyone we encountered in Berlin spoke excellent English. All the signs in Germany are in German and English also. We had no trouble navigating the metro system as it’s well marked with English signage.

After breakfast we walked down to Checkpoint Charlie which is where the military crossing for the Berlin Wall which separated East and West Germany was located. I don’t want to get into a history lesson here but the Berlin Wall History is worth a quick internet search.

Next we made our way around the Christmas market in Potsdamer Platz. We had the best traditional German lunch there where I discovered my love for Goulash! We bought a few little ornaments and the kids rode the carnival swings. This is also where Andrew let the kids take a picture up next to part of the old Berlin Wall before we realized it was covered in old chewing gum!

Right up the street from Potsdamer Platz is the Memorial for Murdered Jews. It caught me off guard and we had no idea what it was when we first walked up on it. It was on my list of places to visit but I didn’t know what it looked like so it was not what I expected. It’s not enclosed, there’s no signage on 3 sides of it, and it’s huge. We had to walk through the entire thing before we made it to the information area and realized what it was. Honestly, I think it’s a pretty major design flaw that there’s nothing denoting it from the rest of the street and construction around it.

We stumbled upon the Murdered Jews Memorial on our way to the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag building. The Brandenburg gate was built in the late 1700s at the site of the old Berlin city gate. It’s huge and beautiful and barely survived WW2, but has been restored to its former beauty. On a side note, one of my favorite parts of our time in Berlin was all the WW2 history! Germany has triumphed over their dark past, but many buildings are still riddled with bullet holes, some patched and others left as living battle scars. Just a block over from the Brandenburg Gate is the Reichstag building which houses the German Parliament. It is an absolutely beautiful work of art!

That night we had dinner right across from our apartment at Fontana di Trevi and it was wonderful! Our server didn’t speak English but she understood us well enough to provide excellent service and we had an excellent meal. The kids had a Margherita pizza which was one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had. Andrew had lamb and I had salmon pasta in a cream sauce. The food was perfect!

One of the things Rhett was most excited about for our Germany trip was seeing the dinosaurs in Berlin’s natural history museum. They have the largest full skeleton brachiosaurus in the world along with several other Dino’s on display. Rhett was absolutely amazed! The entire natural history museum was awesome! I thought we would pop in to see the dinosaurs and then head out but we ended up spending several hours covering every inch of the museum because the kids and adults loved it all!

After spending the morning in the museum we headed over to Alexanderplatz to their big Christmas market. They had tons of vendor and food booths, an ice skating rink, several kids carousels, and a big Ferris wheel. It was an adorable Christmas market delight! We filled up on bratwurst and candies while we played and browsed the rest of the day!

Berlin was our first experience with public transportation and metro systems. All the signage is in English and it’s very easy to navigate. The DB Navigator smartphone app shows you all the train, metro, a bus schedules for all of Germany. You can select your departure and arrival destinations from a map and it will show you all the ways you can get where you’re going. It’s an absolute necessity for getting around using public transport!

There was a lot more we wanted to do in Berlin but since we missed our first day there we had to narrow it down quite a bit. I think 3-4 full days is enough to cover everything though.

Leaving Berlin we took a high speed ICE train to the other side of Germany to the city of Köln. Berlin’s main train station is huge and since it was our first experience with the train system there we were pretty confused how to find the correct platform. We were making it way harder than it was though because every train is assigned a numbered platform and there are no two platform numbers the same regardless of which type of train it is. For example the different train types include ICE, RE, S, U, trams, and buses and they all share the same station. If your ICE train is assigned to platform 8 it may have an ICE train there now and a RE train next.

Berlin and Köln are on opposite sides of the country, but the ICE train between the 2 is only about a 4 hour ride. Train travel is so nice because you can sit back and relax, move around as you please, use the bathroom as needed, or visit the train restaurant all while making it quickly to your destination while taking in the scenery!

9 Hour Layover in Lisbon, Portugal

Our 2 week trip through Germany started out rough. Very rough to be exact. Our first flight was 2 hours late which caused us to miss our connecting flight which caused a 24 hour delay in all our plans. Thankfully we were able to sip some sweet lemonade from those lemons and ended up getting to spend an entire day in Portugal which was not in our plans at all!

The sweet customer service woman in New York helped us pick the best flights to get us to Berlin but also a full 9 hours in Lisbon with minimal effort on our part. We actually made it to Berlin only a few hours later than originally planned! I didn’t even have time to google what to do in Lisbon before we were on our way there though!

Our flight left NY at 8pm and landed in Lisbon at 9am. With time change it was a 6 hour flight and all 4 kids slept the entire 6 hours. It was overnight flight bliss!

When we landed in Portugal we made a pit stop at the bathroom to change our clothes, which I’m so thankful I packed an extra set for everyone in my backpack! made our way through customs and walked out the main entrance of the airport where we found the AeroBus which is a public city bus that takes you from the airport to the city center and back. It makes several stops along the way, but getting to the city center was our main goal. It only cost around €13 for all 6 of us round trip. The ticket man outside the bus was very helpful and gave us an English map of the city too.

When we got to the city center our first order of business was to find somewhere to eat. Remember I said I didn’t have time to even google Lisbon before we left? Yeah, we were totally flying blind. So we did what we do best, we walked down the street until we saw a restaurant and we stopped at the first one that looked like it had an open table for us. In Lisbon this happened to be an amazing little Italian restaurant right on the main Rossio Square called LVSO Central.

After finally getting a real meal we wandered around the city center until we had to leave. We had about 4 hours to kill before we needed to catch the bus back to the airport. The square is filled with cafes, shops, a beautiful fountain, views of the medieval castle, beautiful old world buildings and a Christmas market!

If you’re planning your own layover and thinking this time frame doesn’t add up to 9 hours, you’re right! We only spent about 6 hours out of the airport and that’s because we had an infant traveling with us. Infants only get boarding passes from the main ticket counter so we went back to the airport 3 hours early to check back in and get Belle’s boarding pass, we already had them for the rest of us. My anxiety of missing a flight really paid off this time because we encountered a major problem and needed all 3 hours! Usually I get us to the airport way too early but this time it was absolutely necessary!

When we arrived back at the airport to get Belles ticket she wasn’t listed on the ticket manifest. Sounds simple, just add her, WRONG! It was a huge ordeal. We ended up being drug all over the airport to every higher up, up, and up person for the airline that you can imagine. What I couldn’t believe was she is just a lap baby so she didn’t actually need a seat, just to be added to my ticket, but apparently that was a big issue also. The flight was completely full so I couldn’t just buy her own new seat either. We spent hours getting this situation remedied. We ended up having to rebuy mine and her ticket and getting us all new boarding passes. It was a headache, tears were shed by me, and then we still had to go back through customs and security!

Lisbon airport has the most family friendly airport I’ve ever been in! They have a special security and customs area just for families with small children! We didn’t have strollers with us but they had a special area to take strollers through, the staff was so friendly and patient with everyone, I wish so bad all our US airports were like that! Going through TSA in the US is a nightmare. In Portugal they did the exact same security screening but it was so much less stressful!

We flew TAP Portugal airlines from Lisbon to Berlin and their entire staff was amazing! They were very nice and helpful getting our Belle ticket situation worked out and when we got to our gate to check in the gate agent rearranged our seats so that we had an empty seat between the kids so we would have more room! Our flight left Lisbon at 9pm and landed in Berlin at 11:30pm then we finally made it to the beginning of our Germany trip!

Rowlett Twins Birth Story

Last week we celebrated Rhett & Lorelei turning 4! I can’t believe how fast 4 years has gone by! The twins came into this world about 2 months early at 33 weeks. I get asked a lot about my labor experience and birth with them so I’m going to share the full story here!

My pregnancy from the beginning was what I feel is pretty normal for a twin pregnancy. I suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum the first 20 weeks or so with one hospital visit for IV fluids. Super controversial topic but after 9 weeks I took Zofran during the day and Phenergan at night to combat the constant vomiting. Both my babies were born completely healthy so no side effects from that and we felt the benefits outweighed the risks, but always consult your OB! Other than feeling like I was doing nothing but throw up, my pregnancy was relatively uneventful in the beginning.

Around 25 weeks I was starting to really feel the affects of carrying 2 babies. I was having a lot of pelvic pressure and was still working full time, including 24 hour call shifts, as an RN in the Operating Room. At my 28 week appointment with the Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist we discovered my cervix was starting to shorten. It was still in a safe range but had decreased significantly since my last appointment. At that point we decided it would be best for me to take it easy. Because of the nature of my job they wouldn’t allow me to do light duty so I had to start my maternity leave early. Thankfully I had saved up tons of PTO time. I had been saving it for years and had managed to accrue 6 months of paid maternity leave which was a huge blessing and I’m so thankful to my managers for working with me through that!

At 30 weeks I had a regular checkup with the MFM specialist. At that appointment my cervix has shortened even more, out of the safe range, and I was having contractions. I was sent home on progesterone suppositories, a cardiac medication that helps with preterm labor called Procardia and strict bed rest. I could see the contractions happening on the monitor but I really couldn’t feel them so I went home feeling super uneasy that I wouldn’t know if something was wrong

I woke up about midnight that same night with my stomach cramping and diarrhea (sorry for the TMI but this is important because this is a very common labor symptom and I had no idea) I tried to go back to bed but I was still having those upset stomach cramps. I have a “nervous belly” on normal days so this wasn’t really out of the ordinary for me as I was still reeling over our doctors appointment that day. The only thing that was different is that my nervous belly usually doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night. I debated on waking Andrew up or not but me being awake eventually woke him up on his own. He suggested we go to the hospital and I said absolutely not! While in nursing school I did a semester long internship in Labor & Delivery and I did not want to be that woman that comes in all the time thinking she’s in labor when she’s really not! Andrew had to practically force me into the car to go to the hospital and I was not happy about it. I had an upset stomach, I was not in labor. I was not having contractions. I felt fine actually.

We arrived at the hospital and got checked in to L&D triage. They hooked me up to the monitors and a nurse checked my cervix. I was having regular contractions every 2-3 minutes and I was dilated to a 2. Just 12 hours prior I wasn’t dilated at all and was having minor contractions every 20 minutes or so. I was 30 weeks pregnant with twins and in full blown labor.

The on call doctor started me on Magnesium which didn’t do much to help. My OB came to see me first thing that morning and we decided it would be best to send me to the hospital where my MFM doctor is. Our local hospital doesn’t have a NICU and even on Mag my labor was still progressing. So off I went on an ambulance to the big city about 2 hours away.

The next 48 hours are really a blur. My labor wasn’t stopping, I was on the max dose of Mag and felt like death. I remember learning in nursing school that being on Mag makes you feel horrible, but nothing prepares you for the feeling of being run over by a freight train. On top of feeling awful I was having a Foley catheter nightmare. I’ve had a catheter before for other surgeries and have never had issues with them but because of the way the babies were pressing on my bladder this catheter was extremely painful! Magnesium is very hard for your body to breakdown and process and since I was on the highest dose it was extremely important for my nurses to monitor my urine output so they could monitor my kidney function. I’m a nurse myself and was completely aware of this, but the pain, y’all the pain. I’m so sorry to my nurse, Holly, because I was a horrible patient. I screamed in pain for hours, Andrew was scared and mad and he screamed at the nurses to do something. I finally told Holly if she didn’t willingly take my catheter out I would just do it myself. She reluctantly agreed and I had to use a bedpan to void after that but I felt 100x better!

After 72 hours on Magnesium I was still having contractions but they had slowed significantly and I had reached the limit on how much Mag they could give me. Somewhere in those 3 days I had got 2 steroid shots to help develop the babies lungs and now all there was to do was wait. I would stay in that hospital room until I was 37 weeks and could go back home to deliver or the twins came early, whichever came first.

At this point it was October and right in the middle of harvest. Andrew had to go back and home and get our crop out! Andrew really doesn’t get much credit but he was such a trooper while I was on hospital bed rest! He drove 2 hours back and forth from the hospital to work almost every day.

I spent 3 weeks on hospital bed rest. I had a spacious room with a great view of 1 tree and a parking lot. I wasn’t allowed to leave my room at all. I even got in trouble once for taking too long in the shower. My mom and grandma both stayed with me some when Andrew couldn’t, but honestly I didn’t mind being alone. I felt like a burden for anyone to have to be there with me so I enjoyed the time to myself more. I did a lot of online shopping and taught myself to crochet. Andrew even learned to crochet too and took his turn attempting the baby blanket I was working on 😂

I was on a couple different oral medications to control my contractions which were still coming every 30 minutes or so all day long along with the progesterone suppositories, but every night like clockwork around 7-9pm my contractions would start back up in full force every couple minutes until they could get them back under control.

One night at 33 weeks, just like usual, my contractions started back up. It was around 7pm and Andrew was planning on staying home that night. I called him and told him these felt different and he needed to come now. The nurses tried all the usual meds and tricks to get my uterus to calm down but things weren’t working this time. My contractions were coming every minute and I was dilated to a 5. I had just had an ultrasound 2 days before and both twins were still breech so we knew I would need a csection to deliver them. At this point it was the middle of the night and I had been in active labor for several hours. I was extremely uncomfortable but it wasn’t unbearable. Naturally, my MFM doctor didn’t want to come in at 2am to deliver me so he kept telling the nurses things to do to stop my labor. Andrew went to sleep on the couch in my room about this time and that’s when things really kicked into gear which HE SLEPT THROUGH. I felt my water break (actually baby A, Lorelei’s water) and called for the nurse to come check me. I was really really hurting at this point. I was hot and heavy in labor with twins and had no epidural and no pain medicine. When the nurse walked in I was sitting up in bed in the middle of a contraction and she tried to get me to lay down. Sorry to her now but I screamed some not nice things at her. She laid me down and checked me and I was fully dilated and Lorelei’s foot was right there. I could see the panic written all over her face. We were about to deliver these babies if my doctor didn’t hurry up. My doctor was finally on his way, Andrew woke up, and we were getting prepped for a csection!

I just want to throw out there that the entire month of my preterm labor fiasco I was never in any true labor pain until Lorelei’s water broke and I was completely dilated. It was nothing like people talk about or you see on tv until the very end! Everyone’s labor/birth experience is different but this was not at all what I expected.

Once in the OR the CRNA student did my spinal, it was quick and painless, I chatted with the CRNA and the anesthesiologist who was in the room to my surprise (If you’re part of the OR crew you’ll understand this reference 😂) the my MFM came in and went to work. He joked with me about waking him up for a csection at 4am and then we heard Lorelei cry! She came into this world just like she loves her life, full of energy! I didn’t get to see her but the NICU nurses and a Neonatologist were in the room and they told me she was doing perfect. Rhett took longer, he was hard to get out, he was wedged way up under my ribs (the bottom right one he had broken a few months ago). I remember feeling the immense pressure of them pushing and pulling to get him out. He finally came out screaming too! Just like Lorelei, they said he was great! They wrapped them both up in the same incubator and rolled them past me before they headed to the NICU. They were perfectly healthy. Neither of them needed any oxygen, just tiny 4 pound babies.

Having had multiple csections since this one, I can say now that my recovery from the first one was rough. Almost 9 hours of unmedicated labor followed by a middle of the night emergency csection with 2 babies was really hard on me. I was in a lot of pain for about 2 weeks. I could barely walk at all the first week. To make matters worse I had the worst spinal headache! They kept me in the hospital for 6 days after having the twins. On day 5 I had a blood patch done by an anesthesiologist to relieve my spinal headache which did provide instant relief! The twins spent a month in the NICU with no health complications, just learning to eat and grow. We are so thankful they were both so healthy!

Branson Weekend October 2019

Andrew and I celebrated our 6th anniversary this year on October 12. Considering we have 4 toddlers who have never stayed a night away from us, there isn’t much celebrating to be had for us! We decided we would make a little family weekend getaway of it!

I grew up relatively local to Branson, MO in a small lake town in North Central Arkansas. We went to Branson all the time when I was growing up. I can still remember packing the car up with cooler bags and heading to Branson to the Walmart Supercenter to stock up on groceries because we didn’t have one! Now that we live in Andrew’s hometown Branson is about 4 hours away, but my parents still live close so we chose that for our quick getaway spot since there’s lots to do for the kids!

A little funny tidbit, the girls outfits are Eleanor Rose. The romper Belle has on is several years old, I’ve had it since Lorelei was a baby and all the girls have worn it. When MM could fit in it last year I managed to find the matching dress for Lorelei to wear. This year I was bummed because I didn’t have a size up in the dress for Lorelei so they could all three match! Then all my matching dreams came true and ER decided to run the print again! I was so excited because I love this print so much and I got to get Lorelei’s size up and all the girls matched. I was quickly bummed out when Lorelei’s new dress arrived and I realized the pinks are two completely different colors from her new one and the old ones! Thankfully it was super cold in Branson that weekend so the girls got to wear their adorable Sweet LaRose monogram coats and no one could see the mismatching dresses!

We have a ton of IHG hotel points so we utilized those to stay at Holiday Inn Holiday Hills resort. We have a very spacious 2 bedroom villa and it was really nice! I highly recommend this resort for families! I’m not sure the cost because we used points and it was free but I don’t think it’s very expensive. The resort has rooms of all sizes but there’s 6 of us so we have to go big. Our room had 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a full size kitchen with bar/barstools, a dining area with table, living room, and a kitchenette. Although we didn’t utilize these services, the resort is on a full golf course, has an indoor pool and a restaurant. There’s also security at the entrance and you get parking passes so it felt very safe! It’s a little bit outside Branson strip but only about 5 minutes from Branson Landing.

Andrew came home from work Friday around 11am and we headed straight to Branson to Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede that night for dinner. We chose the 5:30pm show because our kids are little and 7:30 would be way too late for them especially after a long car ride. Honestly I was a little unsure how the Dixie Stampede would go. I hadn’t been since I was a kid and couldn’t remember if it was exciting enough to hold our toddlers attention. I had nothing to worry about, they loved it! They intently watched and loved every minute of the show! Andrew and I talked about it when we left how much we couldn’t believe how into it they were!

Saturday morning we took our time getting around and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel before heading to Silver Dollar City for the day. My mom, stepdad, grandma, and brother were able to meet up with us there. SDC was fully decked out with fall and Halloween decorations and it was really pretty! We hadn’t been to SDC in about 2 and we are frequent Disney World goers so I was unsure what to expect. Honestly we were pretty disappointed. There’s literally 3 rinkydink rides for little kids to ride and everything else has a 36″ height requirement. We are so spoiled to WDW where babies can ride pretty much everything except the big rollercoasters. We were also super shocked by the insane crowds! It was wall to wall shoulder to shoulder people and the hills are so steep! Definitely not stroller friendly at all! WDW is super crowded a lot too and really crowds don’t bother us but WDW is a lot better about dispersing crowds with line ques that are enclosed. I noticed all the walkway space at SDC was taken up by people waiting in lines for food and rides. Overall even though I thought the logistics of SDC are poor, the kids still had a great time and that’s really all that matters. They really enjoyed hanging out with their grandparents and nothing beats a day with their Uncle Kyle, the biggest kid of all. We did have some great food from the big skillets at lunch and funnel cakes and I highly recommend that!

The kids tractor outfits are also Sweet LaRose. You can find them on Facebook

Beach Vacay July 2019

Our quick trip to the beach this summer turned into an eventful and super fun 8 day vacation after Hurricane Michael came into the gulf and threw off our plans a little!

We started out in Gulf Shores, AL which is one of our favorite beach spots. The water isn’t as pristine as further east down the coast but we really love the town of Gulf Shores and all the family friendly establishments there.

No trip to Gulf Shores is complete without a visit to LuLu’s at the Wharf. LuLu’s is owned by Jimmy Buffett’s sister and is an awesome family restaurant. They have live music, bars, gift shop, arcade, and all kinds of outdoor stuff for the kids to play on. Pictured below is my 3yo twins on the toddler ropes course but there’s also a bigger one for the big kids! During summer you can expect the wait for a table at LuLu’s to be at least an hour, but don’t fret, there’s so much to do while you wait that you won’t even get to do everything before your table is ready! LuLu’s is famous for their fried green tomatoes and wow sauce! We are Southerners so fried green tomatoes were already a staple in our summer meal plans but if you’ve never had them they’re definitely worth a try!

We have a ton of IHG hotel points so for this trip we stayed at the Holiday Inn Orange Beach. It’s a nice clean Holiday Inn right on the beach. It has a really great breakfast buffet and plenty of seating space. The staff there is super friendly. The pool area is rather small but there is a pool bar.

We had to hit DeSoto’s and Bahama Bob’s while in Gulf Shores, they’re regular eateries for us, but we were a little disappointed by both on this trip. DeSoto’s is classic seafood and has been around forever. The food and service is usually excellent but this particular day it was nothing to write home about. Bahama Bob’s was even worse off. It used to sit right on the beach but apparently the empty beach lot is not owned by BB’s and is now in the process of an house being built on it which completely blocks the view. Our food was also pretty bad and this is the first time we’ve ever had a bad experience there.

A few days in Hurricane Michael came barreling into the Gulf and threatened us with torrential downpours for the remainder of our stay. At this point we decided to head East to Panama City Beach to avoid all the rain. On our way out of town we stopped at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL. We love this museum and it’s great for kids of all ages! There’s even a cute little toddler play area and flight simulators for the big kids and adults.

Once in PCB we stayed at another IHG location, Holiday Inn Resort. There are actually 2 Holiday Inn Resorts in PCB and both are right on the beach, but they are very different! The one we like to stay at is a lot bigger, has multiple restaurants, and a huge splash pad for the littles. There’s also a large pool, pool bar, pool restaurant, and pizzeria. Every night there’s a huge projector screen that plays a movie out by the pool and there’s often live music. It’s super convenient to spend your days at the pool/beach and walk up the sidewalk to the outdoor grill for a quick lunch. Also kids eat free! Seriously free! There’s an awesome breakfast buffet and all kids meals are free!

Down at Pier Park the big Sky Wheel Ferris wheel was finally finished so we decided to check out the views from the top of it and it did not disappoint! I’m not scared of heights but I am pretty terrified of Ferris wheels but this did not bother me. They’re completely enclosed little capsules so it feels safer than your typical wobbly Ferris wheel

Worth noting about the Holiday Inn resort is that is does have great parking. There’s a large parking lot across the street and it’s accessible via an underground tunnel so you don’t have to actually cross traffic. It’s a super short walk through the tunnel but they also have a little golf cart shuttle that runs back and forth constantly if you can’t/don’t want to walk.

One of our favorite restaurants in PCB is Schooners. It’s an open air restaurant right on the beach with salty air and sea breezes. Be careful about dinner time there with small kids though because once the band starts playing it’s really loud. We usually have to ask to be seated as far away from the band as possible.

Runaway Island is another top notch joint on our list. It’s also really great for a date night. The food and drinks are superb and if you’re seated upstairs it feels a lot fancier than the downstairs crowd. But don’t worry, even the upstairs is kid friendly and with the entire wall of windows every seat has amazing ocean views!

When it was time for us to head home we decided to go a little out of our way and head to Georgia to pick peaches! I did a lot of searching and was surprised to find that most places don’t allow you to pick your own peaches off the trees anymore. I stumbled across Southern Belle Farms in McDonough, GA which is right outside Atlanta so that’s where we headed. SBF was exactly what we were looking for! We headed out into the orchard with our baskets and picked ourselves full of fresh ripe peaches. The kids absolutely loved it! When we were done picking peaches we headed to the other side of the farm to see the animals in the petting zoo. It was a really nice stop on our way home and worth the visit if you’re in the area or passing through!

Easy Summer Dinner Shrimp & Asparagus

Ingredients:

–Shrimp (peeled and tails removed)

-Asparagus (ends trimmed)

-Olive oil

-Salt

-Pepper

-Paprika

-Chili Powder

-3 Tablespoons butter

-1 Lemon

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 400

-Line large cookie sheet with foil and acreage asparagus in a single layer across sheet.

-Drizzle asparagus with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and coat evenly.

-Bake for 6 minutes

-Move asparagus to one side of sheet and place shrimp on the other side

-Drizzle shrimp with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, paprika, chili powder.

-Cube 1Tbs butter and space evenly over asparagus. Cube 2Tbs butter and space evenly over shrimp.

-Slice lemon and place slices evenly over entire sheet.

-Bake for 6 minutes