Annika left the comforts of Oregon prepared:

• princess crown — check;
• DVD player — check;
• pink princess roller bag that Annika insisted on pulling through the airports herself — check.

Her efforts were rewarded with a great trip that included:

• first flying the whole family to Houston so the twin babies could stay with Nana and Grandpa Dell (or, as the twins call them, “Mommy and Daddy 2.0″);
• flying to Zurich, Switzerland with Mommy and Daddy, then driving to Munich;
• during the drive to Munich, repeatedly asking when she could see a castle (an important topic for any princess, of course);
• visiting two castles (the Residenz in Munich and Linderhof Palace in southern Germany);
• celebrating Mommy and Daddy’s 5th anniversary by dining at one of Munich’s hottest vegetarian restaurants (no, you don’t need to adjust your computer);
• Daddy spending a Saturday morning in Mike’s Wunderbarer Waschsalon (free wi-fi included), which reminded him of the last time that he went to a laundromat in Germany and obtained change by taking his mother to her first Turkish grocery store;
• driving through Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland in one day;
• staying at a lovely hotel in Luzern, Swizterland, where Annika could run up and down the halls and eat delicious waffles every morning for breakfast; and
• renting bikes on their last day in Luzern and taking a lovely afternoon ride.

Fortunately, in Oregon there are many ways to go camping without a tent and without sleeping under the stars.  (Some purists will assert that this is merely “camping” and not camping, but one should note that most of those purists do not have a young gaggle of girls to travel with.)  So, the Vance family made a September reservation for a cabin at Stewart State Park, which is only a 35-minute drive from their house.

The cabin had a lovely view of the coast mountains.  It also had some simple furniture, electricity and heat.  It proved to be about the right level of camping for the Vance family right now.

Although Annika was already an experience camper, she enjoyed new experiences like roasting marshmallows and helping Daddy with breakfast.  She thought her sleeping bag was pretty exciting, too, since it was Mommy’s and it was pink.

After managing to get some sleep during the night, everyone went for a nice stroller-friendly walk on a trail in the park.

More pictures are here.

This is the story of how a baby named Annika took her first trip to Europe. It was a lovely trip: she brought her toys and her pacifier and diapers and some tasty baby food. She also brought her parents, Jenelle and Jonathan, because a princess like Annika can’t travel properly without servants.

A friend of Jenelle kindly offered to drive them to the airport on the morning of their departure. Jenelle and Jonathan unloaded their luggage and the airport and carted it to the check-in counter. But, while waiting at the counter, Jonathan realized he had left something in the car.

THEY HAD FORGOTTEN ANNIKA!

Not really. But Jonathan did forget to take the camera out of the car. They tried to call Jenelle’s friend and ask her to return to the airport, but by the time they reached her it was too late. So, they left on vacation without a camera.

Lufthansa airlines was good to Annika. On the 10-hour flight from Portland to Frankfurt, she had a bassinet to sleep in, baby food to eat, and free toys. Lufthansa wasn’t too bad to her parents, either: the flight attendants handed out chocolate bars over and over.

It was the next day by the time they arrived in Frankfurt and caught their connecting flight to Munich. So, everyone was tired by the time they arrived in Munich. They picked up their rental car, a trusty Mercedes A-Class compact car (no, not a luxury car) and drove to their vacation apartment south of Munich.

The vacation apartment was in a little village southwest of Munich near a lake called the Starnberger See. Holzhausen was a lovely, typical southern Bavarian place with farms and an onion-domed church on a hill.

They stayed on a small dairy farm in the middle of the village, called Moarhof. The house was a little over 100 years old and was owned by a friendly Bavarian couple with two young daughters.

The main priority after arriving at the farm was a good night’s rest (Bavaria being 9 hours ahead of Oregon). Lucky for Annika, she had her own bedroom at the farm. Annika and her parents spent the next day driving around the area, buying groceries and a little camera. They also found time for an evening stroll around Holzhausen.

The next day they toured some of the Munich suburbs, including Dachau, site of the first concentration camp, which is now a memorial.

Annika went to Europe last month for the first time. How did she like it? She seemed quite happy with the experience, which largely consisted of viewing the Swiss and German countryside from her car seat, riding over cobblestones in her stroller, dining in exotic locales (e.g., in a rental car in a parking garage, or at the ruins of a 16th-cent. castle), and being the subject of countless cute pictures. A summary of her trip by the numbers:

• Countries visited: 4 (mostly Germany and Switzerland, with brief drive-thrus of Austria and Liechtenstein)
• Miles Kilometers driven: 2743
• Waterfalls seen inside a mountain in Switzerland: 10
• Number of Porches passed on the Autobahn: 1
• Top speed attained on the Autobahn: 150 km/h
• Year the oldest house seen on the trip was built: 1333
• Number of pacifiers taken on the trip: 3
• Number of pacifiers lost on the trip: 3
• Amount of chocolate Annika’s parents consumed: Lots and lots

You can read more in Annika’s forthcoming book, Confessions of a Well-Traveled Baby. And Jonathan will post some pictures, too.

• the travelers got to see their beloved Florida relatives, the East-Coast-Clan (a.k.a. the Michaelis family);
• it was Annika’s first non-direct flight (she did fine–a layover is just another chance to eat);
• Jenelle and Jonathan paddled around in the Michaelis ship (the S.S. Canal Carnivore) and plucked coconuts from the waters of Cape Coral;
• the travelers were treated to a number of wildlife including herons, dolphins, pelicans and two endangered species, burrowing owls and manatees;
• Jonathan got to see American street signs in German;
• everyone enjoyed an evening picnic at the beach;
• they collected seashells at Sanibel Island;
• Matt peeled coconuts and Autumn used them to make yummy pina coladas;
• the trip finished with a fun Family Home Evening.

You can see some pictures here.

There were no casualties, but after feeling so safe on our cruise, it’s strange to think that the ship is now at the bottom of the sea.

Oswald West is a very special state park. Its thirty campsites are all 0.3 miles from the parking lot, which means there is some walking to do before you can set up camp. Fortunately, the park provides lovely, bright blue wheelbarrows that the guests can haul their goods in. The weather was good, and Jenelle and Jonathan had a lovely time.

The big question that loomed was how their new tent would perform. Actually, not so much how would it perform, but how would it fit in a campsite. They had purchased the tent to accommodate their growing family. However, when they first set up the tent at home, it wasn’t clear if the they could accommodate the tent, as it filled most of the living room. Jenelle named it “Snuffalufagus.” Jonathan called it the “Tent-Ma-Hal.” It is officially a four-person tent with a large, screened vestibule on the front half of the tent.

As you probably know, tents this large are banned in many small eastern states because they take up a disproportionately large amount of land.  In the end, Snuffy fit just fine and was very comfortable. Imagine, a tent that Jonathan can stand up in!

On Saturday afternoon they went to the beach at Hug Point and flew Jonathan’s kite.

Reasonable people may wonder how a husband could be so mean and selfish as to force his pregnant wife to go camping, and even make her do the cooking. For the record, the camping trip was a result of Jenelle’s repeated requests to go camping. Besides, she is only 7.75 months along. Additionally, diligent genealogical research has revealed that she stems from good nomadic stock.

Upon arriving in the city, we were surprised to find snow on the ground, which the locals assured us was very unusual.  We spent two nights at a lovely bed and breakfast in the old part of the city.  The place was a house that is almost a hundred years old, which made it a good setting for the large antiques collection of the owners.  This was our first stay at a B&B in the United States, and we very much enjoyed it.  One of the best parts was that the tasty breakfasts included dessert.  The house is next door to the site of the first U.S. post office west of the Rocky Mountains.
After attending church at the friendly Astoria ward, we walked up to the famous Astoria Column, which stands on a hill overlooking the city.  From the top of the column we had a beautiful view of the surrounding country.  The face of the column is covered with a mural depicting the history of the area.  Later, we visited two lighthouses on the Washington side of the river.

The next day, we visited Fort Clatsop National Historic Park, which contains a replica of the fort that the Corps of Discovery wintered in from November 1805 – March 1806.  The word is that Lewis and Clark saw only seven days of good weather during their winter on the coast.  We also visited Fort Stevens, which served as a military base defending the mouth of the Columbia from Civil War times through World War II.

They drove down to the parks on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and set up camp. Within minutes, one of the early highlights of the trip occurred when Jenelle invented the Double Stuff Chocolate Oreo S’more. But the culinary wonders did not stop there as they experimented with their new Dutch oven. By the end of the trip, they were producing things that Jonathan thought he would never eat on a camping trip, including pizza and apple/cherry pie.

During their stay of four days and four nights, they saw wildlife, wildflowers and (of course) really, really big wild trees. They also visited Fern Canyon, a canyon with vertical walls that are covered with ferns. During the hikes they went on, they noticed that many of the groves were named after people (presumably ones who had money to donate to the park). Jenelle and Jonathan started thinking that it would be great to have a Vance Grove in the park. As they were driving home on Wednesday, they happened upon just such a place, named after an early pioneer in the area.

Update: Here’s a link to a panorama shot that I couldn’t upload into the photo site (for unknown reasons).