Stalzer/Obele Family Blog

In the meantime we are at T minus 2 days - nothing is packed yet - and Felix cannot stand to wait any longer. He behaves like a caged tiger - constantly moving. It is amazing to see him. He is so excited that he cannot sit still, concentrate, relax, …
Well, for the others, especially his brother Max and myself, this is going to be a very tough time the following two days as Felix knows how to drive us absolutely mad. If he is asked why he behaves this way he will say that he is so excited that he cannot help himself and that he is bored that nothing is happening right now.
So, help - I may need Valium or something like that to be able to survive Saturday!!
We still have to do quite some work, then pack up everything - of course we take our computers and everything with us (hopefully there are not too many emergencies where we have to create new releases) - and entertain two kiddies who wanted to leave last week already…
I guess it is good that we have our blog - this releaves a lot of tension and going back after some time has passed, it is even funny (hopefully).

Today was “Parent’s Open Day” at the Academy. This means that parents could talk to the teacher and find out what their child is doing, how he/she is behaving, following the subjects, etc.

Yesterday when we talked to the boys about it, Felix did not want to go back to school today.

Well, both do exceptionally good. Max improved so much from last year when we was so shy that he did not have a lot of friends. He surprised us with his “weekend book”. This is a book where the children draw a pictures of what they did on the weekend and they also write a sentence - with the help of the teachers - of what they had done. Max had drawn great pictures and his writing was super.

Felix is also extremely good. He surprised his teacher Ms Carolyn and us today with his “book”. They had to draw a story and write sentences beneath the pictures. It was great. Normally Felix does not like writing too much - he prefers math - you can do this in your head, no need to write anything down, but what he did with his story was really super.

So Thomas and I left the school as very proud parents this afternoon. Also great thanks to the teachers of Felix and Max. They have a terrific way to motivate the children and help and support them without pressuring them. Felix and Max enjoy school very much (this hopefully stays that way :-)).

Somehow I can’t believe it - one more week till we will leave for our vacation. This time I - and I think the rest of our family, too - really needs it. Thomas and I have been working real hard and we really need a break.

Then, two weeks ago, my Mum suddenly and completely unexpectedly died. My sister Renate and I have a very hard time to accept the fact that we won’t be able to call her anymore, show her pictures about the boys, …

All this I guess makes this vacation so important. Being able to spent valuable time with the others. Enjoying the togetherness and having fun together.

It has been almost a year since we started to blog about all the things that are important, funny, annoying, etc. to us. While preparing for this upcoming vacation we already looked back at the entries about our last visit to Orlando in April 2007. It is amazing how many little things we would have forgotten had we not written them down.

So, hopefully, this week is not too stressful (work-wise).

Today we finished the last bookings. We decided this time to fly to Frankfurt on Sunday and stay there overnight in a hotel. Then Thomas and the boys picked out a rental car - they finally decided on a SUV as I did not approve the budget for a “Hummer”. Some flights to and from Germany had to be booked as well and I guess now we are set.

Felix and Max cannot wait anymore - especially Felix is already completely worked up. He is crossing out days every evening on his calendar.

After booking the house, we started to plan the holiday.

Wasn’t there something about a delay in the space shuttle launch in January ???? Yes - the proposed launch date for STS122 is Feb 7th.

Cool, they still have spaces available to watch the launch. So, I got my credit cards and booked four places. The tickets are going to be sent via UPS to us in spain and include a “space shuttle launch” package (Whatever that is).

To watch a space shuttle launch has always been a dream of me - I am really looking forward to it.

Today we reserved a really beautiful house in Orlando for a vacation in february (4th to 18th). We had a lot of work in the past three months and the boys didn’t see too much of us, so we decided to extend the school holidays of the boys a bit and to go to Florida.

We contacted Sandra (the owner of the house we rented last year). However, the house is not available in our required timeframe.

Helga fired up her browser and started to look for alternatives. Soon, I could hear comments like - look at this beautiful house, look - they got a hot tub, Wow - this is nice.

Finally, she had a whole list of houses, a ton of emails (we need a fast, wireless Internet connection among other things). It was like Florida central next door.

In the end, we reduced the list to 4 houses, which were suitable. Still, we had to decide “Should we go, shouldn’t we go…”

On Friday, one of the owners called me (”Your wife talked to my wife” - like “your lawyer talked to my lawyer…”) and told me about his house in Calabay park. It turns out, that he owns the house next door to the house we were last year in. Also, he knows Sandra privately.

Of course, his house was better, more luxurious, better lighting, etc. So, Allan and Sandra (the two “competing” owners), we are going to report here our blog about our experiences.

Have a look at where we are going to spend some time.

http://www.floridavillas360.com

Yesterday, Felix invited Rex and Gavin for a flight in the Cardinal. Rex is a school friend from Felix and Gavin (Rex’s father) is the “trainer” of our wednesday soccer club. Felix was a really good helper as we have the rule “He who flies carries his headset”. Because Gavin and Rex waited for us at the airfield, Felix carried the headset for Rex.

So shortly after 7pm, we met at Son Bonet airfield (LESB), filed a flight plan, got the Cardinal out of the hangar, got everybody seated and off we went.

At that time of the day, the air gets a little bit cooler and has less turbulence. It was a very smooth ride and we could even go through the mountains without too much “bumping”.

We flew in direction Andratx and then along the northern coast up until about Pollensa, crossed the mountains and went back to Son Bonet.

Actually, we wanted to fly to Cap Formentor but it was already getting late (Sunset was at 9:10pm and we landed 9:03pm - even with the shortcut…)

Gavin brought a bottle of apple juice with water, so we even had catering on board. The boys definetely enjoyed it.

After about one hour we headed back to the airfield, landed, refueled the airplane and put it back into the hangar.

It was a very nice flight and everybody got back on the ground safely.

Maxis class - Reception 1 - had Farming as their theme. The boys and girls had to wear typical farm clothes, such as a jeans, a checkered shirt, and a neckerchief.

Here everyone is still waiting for the big event. 

 Max had a great time. He enjoyed himself very much.

 Highly concentrated he made sure to use the correct steps and movements. It was not necessarily what all the others did - but such is Max.

 Normally Max is more the shy type, but singing and dancing seems to loosen him.

 While the others are already finished, Max is still jumping around.

 He practised the steps for this dance often at home and was extremely concentrated when they finally did this dance.

 A little bit exhausted but still all ears.

Back in class he was very proud that everybody liked so much what they did.

It was great to see him having so much fun in his school.

Thanks also to his teachers Ms. Jane and Ms. Angie who did the impossible by getting 24 children to show this great performance with a lot of enthusiasm and joy.

On Tuesday June 19, 2007 the boys had their Academy Year End Concert. Felix in Reception 2 had Scotland as his theme. Everybody was asked to think of something having to do with Scotland. Ms. Carolyn, Felix teacher, organised those wonderful funny hats.

We did not have to think long about this - it soon became clear that Felix Mc Stalzer would be a scientist who would try to prove to the world that Nessie does indeed exist.

Before the concert when they were still in class Felix showed the book he made to his teacher Ms. Carolyn. He had been drawing a lot of Nessie pictures and had asked me to print out some information I would find on the internet about Nessie and Loch Ness.

The picture on the left shows Felix class waiting for their big performance.

If you look at the pictures - he really looks like a real highlander (which fits perfectly with his moto of life that there can only be ONE!!!).

 Felix class performed several dances including a famous sword dance (I am sorry, but I can not remember the name).

It looked as if all of them had a great time. Thomas was not able to be there - he had an important business meeting in Germany, but Wolfgang helped to get as many pictures as possible.

 A big, big Thank you to Ms. Carolyn and Ms. Natasha. It is amazing how wonderful all of them worked together as a team. The choreography of their dances and songs was outstanding.

After Felix, Max and Thomas came back from Animal Kingdom where they enjoyed an adventurous day, Felix and Max jumped for the last time in the ice cold pool. After taking showers we had dinner and then we loaded everything into the car. Max had to say good-bye to all the stuffed animals in the house and explain to them where he was going. Felix could not understand that there was no more tíme to play billiard, …. we were really, really sad to leave after such a great vacation.

When we checked in they told us that one of our suitcases was way to heavy and that we needed to change it otherwise we would get billed. Being true Swabians we quickly changed the contents of our suitcases around.

By the time we finally got to the plane the boys were already really tired (scheduled departure was 9:35 pm). Max sat with Thomas and Felix with me. It was quite some work keeping them awake before the dinner was served. After that they both slept almost till we arrived at 13:25 Uhr in Frankfurt. Thomas and I did not sleep but relaxed.

The total flight time was over 9 hours - way to long. I wish “beaming” as in StarTrek would be possible.

After getting our suitcases, clearing customs and renting a car we finally were on our way to Neuweiler. And after another 2.5 hours - during which Felix and Max slept again - we made it to the grandparents home. Oh, did that coffee which grandpa Roger served taste great.

Everybody tried to hold out till it was dark until we could finally stretch out in a bed and immediately fall asleep. 

Today, we left for Kennedy Space Center. It is a “childhood dream” of me to visit the KSC. When I lived with my parents in the states, I always wanted to go to KSC but we never had the chance. Later working in California - well, it was just on the other side of the US. So today, we went there. It is about a one hour drive from our house in Orlando to Cape Caneveral. Something that is really startling me are the speedlimits on the highway. When I was a kid, if you only thought about driving faster then 55 on a highway you got a ticket. Nowadays, the speed limit is at 75 however I think I was one of the slowest going “just” 75 on the highway.

Another thing are the toll stations. We paid about 10$ in highway tolls oneway to KSC. I always wonder why in Germany the “Mautsystem” has to be so complex….

After having our “invasion of the love-bugs” (see Helgas report) we arrived at around 12:00 at KSC.

With the normal admission tickets, a bus tour of the facility is included. The last scheduled tour is at 2pm so we went to the bus station right away - we didn’t want to be on the last bus. The first stop of the tour was the observation deck for the Space Shuttle launch sites. We passed the VAB - Vehicle assembly building and saw two mobile launch platforms. Unfortunately it was very hazy - so we couldn’t see the launch sites very clearly. It looks very similar to the cement factory in Binissalem.

After a short information film about the Space shuttle, we went on top of the observation tower. In the middle of the tower was one of Space shuttles engine as an exhibit.

The next stop on the bus tour was the Saturn V, Gemini and Apollo missions site. Again after an information film about space flight, we saw a complete Saturn V rocket complete with lunar lander, rover, etc in an exhibit hall. It was very impressive. We watched another video about the moon landing (”That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”)

Third stop was the ISS exhibit. After another movie, we saw some actual ISS modules and could look into the ISS module assembly - Impressive.

The modules being processed were from Europe, Japan, Canada and teh US. Amazing that all of the units fit together.

The boys were impressed by the “simple” things of life in the Space Station - like, going to the toilett, taking a shower, sleeping, etc.

Returning back to the Visitor complex, we wanted to get something to eat. To our surprise all of the restaurants, food courts, etc. had already closed at 3:15pm. So we had some cookies and went to look at the rockets in the rocket garden and looked at some more exhibits.

The boys used their chances to train to be an astronaut. 

On the way back to the mainland, we passed a draw- bridge. Right in front of us, the bridge opened for a cargo boat. Watching the bridge go up, we noticed some powerlines on poles right through the water - crazy.

All in all there were a lot of impressions of the KSC. The huge rockets, the gigantic Merritt island, how little NASA is actually using of the island, etc.

Again, I had my GPS recording our way through Kennedy Space Center. Here is our path.

Actually at the end of our visit, we didn’t find our car right away. By activating the function “back to start” my watch showed us the correct way to our car - Cool.

Today we decided to go to Kennedy Space Center. Last year we did not have time anymore and both Thomas and I really wanted to go this time. The boys were excited about space crafts and rockets.

Last time we drove further away from Orlando (on Sunday - Busch Gardens, Tampa) we drove through a tropical hurricane on the way back (Thomas read all about it and is now an expert on tropical and subtropical hurricanes, wind directions, ….). This time on the way to Kennedy Space Center we drove through clouds of Love Bugs. It is really amazing how many there are.

 When we arrived our car and most of the other cars were covered with these insects. 

Tonight, we had a real treat for dinner. The boys had pasta with peanut butter sauce (Their favorite) and we had ….. King crab legs !! I steamed them and made a delicious sauce out of thyme, garlic and lemon. It was fantastic. Helga had a little bit of Sushi as a “side dish”. I had some Sushi as well. However, after eating two king crab legs and some salad, I could eat no more.

Of course, we have the GPS Data from our visit to MGM’s.

Felix updated the entry about the first Busch Garden visit. Have a look

http://stalzerobele.vasercontrol.com/2007/05/01/felix-and-max-as-reporters-in-busch-garden-tampa/